President of the Academic Staff Union of (ASUU), Emmanuel Osodeke, has revealed that the Minster of Education Adamu Adamu has not officially met with the striking lecturers to discuss demands.
Making this disclosure while appearing Monday night on Channels TV, Osodeke disclosed that the last time the government met the striking lecturers was in June.
He claimed that the union hoped that the government would convene another meeting after assignments were delegated to some parties during the meeting that was held in June.
“The last time we had a meeting with the government was in June when the Chief of staff headed a tripartite meeting. I think early June we had that meeting and we agreed that within six weeks we’ll reconvene and the committee that was set up will come back and report to us and we’ll take a final decision, that committee had in attendance the chief of staff, Secretary to the Federal government, the Sultan of Sokoto, president of CAN, and all the unions. We met and raised the issue and they gave the Nimi Briggs committee time to finish the negotiation, gave NITDA three weeks to finish testing and we thought that within three weeks, they will report back, and the chief of staff will reconvene that meeting then we’ll call off the strike, but since then,” Osodeke said.
Asked if the union officially met with the minister of education, Osodeke said: “we’ve not we have not had any official meeting with him, nothing, all we’ve had are just unofficial meetings that is it.”
ASUU went on strike on Monday, February 14, 2022. Among several other demands, the union asked that the ASUU-FGN 2009 agreement be renegotiated, and that revitalisation funds be released for universities.
However, there appear to be many discrepancies between the union and the government’s negotiations, leading to the union’s decision to continue its strike action.
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