ASUU Strike Continues as Meeting With Federal Goverment Ends In A Dead Lock

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

The Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Monday failed to reach final agreement on issues surrounding the threat by the union to call an all-out strike.

The eight-hour meeting between both parties was deadlocked as they  failed to agree on lecturers’ earned allowances.

The union had on Wednesday embarked on a warning strike following the failure of the government to implement an agreement reached between the two parties in 2009.

The Senate, at a plenary on Tuesday, authorised it’s President to intervene and avert a possible worsening of the situation.

Thus, on Monday, the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETfund called for a meeting with the union executives.

The outcome of the meeting has forced the committee to adjourn the peace meeting indefinitely to allow for more consultations.

The meeting, chaired by Sen. Jibrin Barau (APC-Kano), was attended by the national leadership of ASUU led by its National  President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Rasheed; and the Director General of the National Pension Commission (PenCom), Mrs. Ahonu-Amazu, among others.

Briefing journalists after the meeting, Sen. Barau, who is chairman of the Committee said the meeting agreed on all issues at stake except the one on ‘earned allowance’.

However, ASUU president declined to comment as the union’s delegation to the meeting quietly walked away without talking to journalists.

Meanwhile, some students of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) have appealed to the Federal Government to urgently look into grievances of striking lecturers to forestall incessant strikes in universities.

The students made the appeal in Nsukka on Tuesday while reacting to the ongoing warning strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

The President of the Students Union Government (SUG) in the university, Emmanuel Chukwu pleaded with President Muhammad Buhari to urgently address the grievances of the striking lecturers.