Students in both Universities and Polytechnics in Nigeria would have to stay more longer at home as the two separate meetings with representatives of Federal Government with the unions end in deadlock.
The meeting with the leadership of Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics was in the instance of Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, while that of the Academic Staff Union of Universities was on the instance of Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige.
ASUP meeting which lasted for five hours on monday was chaired by the permanent secretary ministry of education sunny echonu.
Speaking with PeopleReporters, ASUP President Comrade Usman Dutse said the union are not pleased with the body language of government which seems to be proposing second week of January 2019 for the continuation of
the the meeting.
PeopleReporters can report that ASUP resumed strike on December 12, 2018 over governments failure to keep to agreements reached on ‘NEEDS’ assessement earned academic allowance among others demands.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on their part staged a walk out at the conciliation meeting with the Federal Government, chaired by Dr Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment.
ASUU President Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi who refused to speak with newsmen after the two hours meeting said,”go and ask the Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige.
The meeting which was called at the instance of the minister was aimed at finding ways of ending the strike, which commenced on Nov. 5.
ASUU demands include some areas of understanding in the implementation of the Memorandum of Action agreed to in 2017.
Some of these area include shortfall in salaries of some Federal universities’ workers and lecturers, Earned allowances, revitalisation that are part of 2009 agreement, among others.
Ngige while addressing newsmen, said the meeting was a continuation from last Monday meeting.
According to him, we gave our selves some assignment with different Ministries, Department and Agencie (MDAs) on what to do.
“They brought their reports today and we took the reports and we were supposed to do some implementation on the reports.
” So we are going to give ourselves some days for it to be done and to see whether we can accomplished them before Christmas,”he said.
The Minister also denied any walk out by the union, saying there is no walk out, we held the meeting and we even broke in to a executive session and we discussed.
He added that there is no dissatisfaction by the union as we have already agreed on implementation and we have give ourselves some work plan.
He however said that the only difference for the implementation on the agreement reached was only a matter of days before Christmas for the discussions.
“So that for students who are home, will have some hope of resuming in January and those who have missed their exams this time will also have hope for first week in January.
“So, the issue of shortfall in salaries are being worked on, among other major issues, and I will be meeting with the Minister of Finance tomorrow to find out the stage of implementation of that. So there is progress ” Ngige said.
He also said the meeting was adjourned indefinitely.