By Eunice Okeke
The Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) concluded their closed-door meeting on Wednesday, reaching an agreement to resolve all outstanding issues amicably in order to prevent a strike.
The closed-door meeting began around 4:30 PM at the Ministry of Education headquarters in Abuja and lasted over two hours. Present were the two ministers responsible for Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman and Dr. Yusuf Sununu, along with other senior officials from the ministry representing the federal government.
The ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, who headed the union’s delegation, informed reporters after the meeting that the negotiation process had commenced and expressed hope that the federal government would act on the agreements reached.
“We discussed all the issues and assigned tasks to certain individuals to review and reach a consensus on the way forward,” he stated.
Regarding the two-week ultimatum set by the union, Osodeke stated that they would return and provide their members with the details of the meeting.
“What matters is that we have initiated the process, and our hope is to reach a resolution for the benefit of our youth and the nation as a whole.”
“The government has been in office for a year, and we have not been invited to any formal meetings until today, which marks our first official meeting. We have initiated a process and will establish deadlines. We plan to reconvene to review the progress made on these issues and hope to see the process continue,” he said.
For his part, Mamman stated that consultations would begin right away to address the challenges facing education.
“We had a very productive meeting where we discussed progress on ensuring the system functions effectively. Many of the issues we addressed are inherited or ongoing, and we talked about all of them without exception, reaching a consensus on the way forward.”
“Extensive consultations will continue regarding information that is outside the ministry’s scope and will require us to liaise with our counterparts in other ministries.”
“However, the key takeaway is that we had a very productive meeting and agreed to keep the consultations going to address the challenges facing education in Nigeria,” he stated.
Honorable Fm reminds us that ASUU had warned of a nationwide strike due to the federal government’s failure to fulfill its demands.
The union had urged the government to take action within two weeks to resolve all pending demands.
Some of the contentious issues include removal from IPPIS, renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, the backlog of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), and unpaid salaries, among others.