The Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have scheduled a follow-up meeting on September 6 to further negotiate and resolve their age long conflict.
The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman while addressing journalists in Abuja on Wednesday disclosed that the proposed meeting would ensure that grey areas were resolved to avert the planned industrial action.
After the meeting which lasted for over two hours behind closed doors, the Minister expressed optimism that universities would not be shut down, rather sub-committees were set up to look into the issues and report progress by next week.
“Hopefully, we have a very good window for the resolution of the issues. So, the task before us now is to work on those modalities and the processes and procedures we all agreed to study the problems.
“So we are coming back on September 6 to report back on the tasks we have set out to work towards resolution of the issues. It’s been a very friendly meeting, a very good understanding of where we are and what we want to achieve for the universities sector”, he said.
Similarly, ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, expressed hope that the issues would be resolved before the next meeting.
Prof. Osodeke further stated that, “as a Union, we leadership don’t decide for our members. Whatever we get by September 6 will be communicated to our members and they would decide on what to do next”.
Last week, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had issued a 21-day ultimatum to the Federal Government to promptly address the outstanding issues that have encumbered the development of Nigeria universities.
Their demands included emergency revitalisation fund of public universities, payment of outstanding earned academic allowances, release of withheld salaries, promotion arrears and third-party deductions of its members.
The other issues include stoppage of illegal recruitments, proliferation of public universities/abuse of universities’ laws, regulations and processes, removal of universities from the treasury single account and new IPPIS to herald the autonomy of the universities.
