The federal government will today resume negotiation with the leaders of the Academic Staff Union of the Nigerian University (ASUU) over their prolonged strike action with the hope they will bring the university strike to end. Public University lecturers went on strike since 4th November, 2018 demanding improved funding of universities and implementation of a previous agreement entered into with the government.
Biodun Ogunyemi, the National president of ASUU disclosed that, the meeting is scheduled to hold at the Ministry of Labour and Employment by 4:00 pm today. (Premium Time).
Today’s meeting is going to be the eighth sitting since ASUU commenced the industrial action.
In their previous meeting, ASUU demanded that the Federal government should release the sum of N50 billion, to show commitment to the revitalization of public universities in line with their earlier agreement so as to make ASUU call off the strike.
The said N50 billion is to serve as the first trench out of the N220 billion government agreed for the project, this year.
However, the major setback lingering the industrial action is the revitalization of the universities. Meanwhile, the federal government is yet to redeem its pledge of releasing N1.1 trillion as agreed as part of the revitalization project.
As contained in the 2013 Memorandum of understanding (MOU), public universities required N1.3 trillion for modest revitalization. The funds which were agreed to be released in trenches of N200 billion in 2013, N220billion 2014, N220billion 2015, 220billion in 2016, N220billion in 2017 and N220billion in 2018.
Although the previous government of Goodluck Jonathan released N200 billion in 2013, since then, nothing has been released.
At the seventh meeting of the government with ASUU leadership on January 8, the minister of labour and employment, Chris Ngige, revealed the dispute with the lecturers was almost coming to end. He listed the fresh concessions made by the government to ASUU.
Apparently, to avoid the controversy that greeted the sharing of the allowance in 2017, ASUU is insisting that the federal government should categorically state the amount earmarked for its members, which it said, must not be less than the N18.3 billion it received then.
