The Federal Government of Nigeria and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have agreed to resolve their disputes amicably and prevent a planned strike. This agreement was reached on Wednesday after a closed-door meeting that lasted for over two hours at the Ministry of Education’s headquarters in Abuja.
The meeting began at approximately 4:30 p.m. and included key government officials such as Prof. Tahir Mamman and Dr. Yusuf Sununu, the two ministers overseeing education, along with other top officials from the ministry. ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, led the union’s delegation.
After the meeting, Prof. Osodeke informed newsmen that the negotiation process had started and expressed hope that the federal government would follow through on the agreements reached.
“We have discussions on all the issues, and we have given assignments to some people to look at and agreed on the way forward,” he said.
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Regarding the two-week ultimatum issued by ASUU, Prof. Osodeke mentioned that they would relay the details of the meeting to their members. He emphasized the importance of resolving the issues for the benefit of students and the nation.
“What is important is that we have started the process, and our prayer is that we resolve it for the interest of our young men and the interest of the nation,” he added.
Prof. Osodeke also highlighted that this was the first formal meeting with the government since it took office a year ago.
He noted, “The government has spent one year in office, and we have not been called for any formal meetings. Today we are having the first formal meeting. There is a process we have started, and we are going to set deadlines, we are going to meet to look at what has been done on those issues, and we hope the process will continue.”
On his part, Prof. Mamman confirmed that the consultations would commence immediately to address the issues plaguing the education sector.
“We’ve had a very good meeting and a very productive one. We’ve discussed progress on how to ensure that the system works well and lots of the issues we talked about are those that we inherited and some ongoing. We discussed them all without exception and we have consensus on the way forward,” he said.
Prof. Mamman also mentioned that further consultations would be necessary to gather information beyond the scope of the Ministry of Education and involve other ministries.
“A lot of consultations will still continue on some information we don’t have, which are beyond the scope of the ministry and which will require 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 with the consultations to overcome the problems bedeviling education in Nigeria,” he added.
The meeting came after ASUU had threatened to embark on a nationwide strike due to the federal government’s failure to meet its demands. The union had given the government a two-week ultimatum to address issues such as removal from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, payment of all backlog of Earned Academic Allowance (EAA), and settlement of outstanding salaries.