Metro
Again, FG/ASUU meeting deadlocked, union to set date for another meeting
The meeting between the Federal government and the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) again ended in deadlock on Monday.
The meeting, held at the Federal Ministry of Labour headquarters ended without resolution while the Federal government said another meeting (date unknown) would be conveyed at the instance of ASUU.
According to the Minister of labour and employment, Chris Ngige, agreements were reached in seven areas, including the initial disbursement of N163 billion from Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETfund) to satisfy some of the demands of ASUU.
Ngige said, ”Today we have agreed to fund revitalisation. Government has released from TETFUND account about N163 billion. The meeting will reconvene at the instance of ASUU. FG is not weak in the negotiation. The strike is not slipping out of our hands.
”We did not take a long time than we anticipated. We have other commitments but the important thing is that we have made substantial progress. We have reached some agreements in seven areas,” he said.
But the national president of ASUU, Biodun Ogunyemi, insisted that government must address the issue of revitalization before the union could consider the suspension of the strike.
He added that meeting ended with grey areas to be resolved.
Read also: ASUU gives least acceptable conditions to end strike
He said, ”We have not suspended the strike, discussion will continue at a later date. We are going back to our members for further consultation.
”Revitilisation is central to our academic work. Unless that area is addressed, our members will still have issues. We are not demanding for N50 billion, we are saying that the minimum that FG can release to reactivate revitalisation fund is N50 billion,” he said.
The meeting was the sixth in the series of meetings between the two parties since the union declared an indefinite strike on November 4, 2018.
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