The federal government and The Academic Staff Union of Universities met on Thursday, 12 May, 2022 to discuss the ongoing strike that has kept Nigerian students at home since February 14.
After the ASUU meeting with the Ministry of Labor and Employment, the minister Senator Chris Ngige said the meetings will begin to bear fruit this week.
The ministry also met with the other three university-based unions that are currently on strike.
They include the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), the Non Academic Staff Union (Nasu) and the National Association of Academic Technologists (Naat).
the outcome of the meeting
In a statement released by the Ministry of Labour and Employment spokesman Olajide Oshundun, Ngige said the government had a friendly and fruitful discussion with the unions.
He said all the parties reached some agreements and everybody that attended the meeting was satisfied.
“We discussed. Everybody was happy. We reached some agreements and we hope by next week, those agreements will start to mature and the four unions will also go brief their members, so they can call off the strike,” Ngige said.
After this meeting they had with government, Asuu will then need to brief their members and take decision on how to proceed.
The union, which extended its strike action by 12 weeks on Monday, May 9, 2022, has caused many Nigerian students to protest because they are tired of sitting at home.
The last meeting that the federal government and Asuu had before the Thursday meeting didn’t end well as they failed to reach any agreement.
The union’s president, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke said the strike will continue till the federal government met all their demands.
What are Asuu demands?
ASUU embarked on strike to press home their demands from government and this demand include their welfare, approval of their own payment system, UTAS, instead of the government’s own which is the IPPIS.
And they also want the implementation of the 2009 agreement in which the government promised about 1.1 trillion naira to upgrade infrastructure in Nigerian universities.
They claimed that the government has decided to abandon negotiation and refuse to pay them their salaries.
