After 12 hours, 30 minutes of a closed door meeting between ASUU and an FG delegation, striking university lecturers have agreed to consider FG’s offer and suspend their strike.
According to a report by Premium Times, the leadership of ASUU led by the national President, Biodun Ogunyemi met with a FG delegation led by Minister of Labour, Dr Chris Ngige and Minister for Education, Adamu Adamu on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
Ogunyemi,
who reportedly spoke to journalists after the meeting said though it
accepted the proposal presented by the government, it will take the
proposal to its members and get back to the government in a week.
“Now we have some concrete proposal that we will take back to our members for consideration,” he said.
On his part, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu,
said ASUU’s demands have been addressed and the union will get back to
the government in a week after consulting with its principals.
The meeting started 1:38pm on Thursday and ended 2:15 a.m. on Friday.
They rose from the meeting early on Friday in Abuja after reaching
an agreement that was mutually acceptable, including the commencement of
payment of salary shortfalls.
Dr. Chris Ngige, is reported to have assured ASUU that the government had started paying the arrears of salary.
ASUU insisted that the Federal Government must remit N200 billion
into the universities’ revitalisation fund before the on-going strike
can be suspended.
Those who represented ASUU at the negotiation are a former
President of the union, Prof. Assisi Asobie and President of the Nigeria
Labour Congress (NLC), Abuba Wabba.
Issues in contention include the registration of Nigerian
Universities Pension Management Company (NUPEMCO); fractionalisation of
salaries in federal universities and gross under-funding/non-funding of
state universities.
Others include payment of arrears and the implementation of earned
academic allowance; and the non-release of funds for the revitalisation
of public universities as spelt out in the 2013 Memorandum of
Understanding.
Other issues are guidelines for the retirement benefits of
professors in line with the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement; Treasury Single
Account (TSA) and withdrawal of support for universities’ staff primary
schools.