The Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Wednesday concluded their meeting with an agreement that all contentious issues would be resolved amicably to avert another strike in universities.
The parties also agreed to initiate a communication process to prevent a strike planned by the union.
The meeting, which lasted more than two hours, was attended by the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, Minister of State for Education, Dr. Yusuf Sununu, and other high-ranking officials in the ministry.
ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, who led the union team, told journalists after the meeting that the negotiation process had begun and urged the federal government to follow through on the agreement between the two parties.
He said: “We have discussed all these issues and we have assigned some people to look into them, and agree on the way forward.”
In the two-week ultimatum issued by ASUU, Osodeke said they would return and provide details of the meeting to their members.
“What is important is that we have started the process and our prayer is that we complete it for the sake of our young generation and the interests of the nation.
“The government has been in office for a year and we have not been called for any formal meeting. Today we had our first formal meeting.
“There is a process that we have started and we will set a deadline, we will meet to see what has been done on the matter and we hope that this process will continue,” the ASUU president added.
Meanwhile, Mamman said that consultations would begin soon to address the problems disrupting education.
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“We had a very good and very productive meeting. We’ve discussed progress on how to ensure systems work well and most of the problems we’ve talked about are problems we inherited and some are still ongoing.
“We discussed everything without exception and we have a consensus on the way forward.
“There are still many consultations that will continue regarding some information that we do not have, which is outside the scope of the ministry and requires us to connect with our colleagues in other ministries.
“But the most important thing is that we had a very good meeting and agreed to continue consultations to address the problems plaguing education in Nigeria,” the minister said.
ASUU a few weeks ago threatened to go on a nationwide strike over the federal government’s failure to meet its demands.
The union gave the government two weeks to resolve its outstanding demands.
ASUU’s demands include removal of the university from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), Renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, payment of all Earned Academic Allowance (EAA) deposits and unpaid salaries, among others.
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