The Federal Government is likely to take a decision on how to handle the ongoing strike embarked upon by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, gave the indication on Monday, after an aborted meeting with the union which shunned government.
ASUU President, Biodun Ogunyemi, on Tuesday confirmed that the union will not attend the meeting. His reason was that ASUU has met and discussed the new offer from the Federal Government as well as submitted a proposal to the government.
According to him, ASUU can only attend another meeting with the Federal Government after it must have received a reply to their proposal from the government.
Ngige however told newsmen that ASUU’s new letter dated August 28, 2017, would be submitted to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) at its meeting today (Wednesday).
According to him, ”The government, as you know, has made an offer to ASUU through the Ministry of Education and late yesterday (Monday), ASUU got back to us with their counter offer.
“By then, this meeting had been scheduled and the government’s side needed to deliberate on their counter offer before we can have a reconciliation meeting to further discuss areas of disagreement.
“That is the position right now. We are holding a government side meeting, while the Minister of Education is also holding meeting and we will meet later today and formalize our position”.
He further said that there are aspects of the demands by ASUU that needs FEC approval to go on with.
“Thereafter, we will meet with the ASUU team either tomorrow (Wednesday) evening or Thursday morning, which ever will be more convenient,” the minister said.
RipplesNigeria… without borders, without fears
