Strike: ASUU, FG Continue Negotiation

Academic Staff Union of Universities and Federal Government have resumed their negotiation over the strike embarked upon by the lecturers.

They had adjourned their meeting till Monday after the meeting last Wednesday ended in a deadlock.

The parley is expected to decide on the platform for the disbursement of the funds pledged by the FG.

The FG team had offered to pay the salary arrears and the N30 billion earned allowances of the university lecturers through the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System platform pending the roll-out of ASUU’s preferred platform, the University Transparency and Accountability Solution.

But the ASUU delegation reportedly insisted that the university teachers would not enrol on the government salary platform.

The Minister of State, Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, announced the continuation of the meeting on Monday.

“Our discussions/negotiations with the Academic Staff Union of Universities continue today,” he tweeted.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, is leading the FG’s team while the ASUU president, Biodun Ogunyemi, leads the lecturers.

The premier news reports that the meeting between FG and ASUU deadlock last week due to the disagreement over disbursement. that would be used in disbursing the salary arrears and the N30bn Earned Allowances of the university lecturers.

The spokesman, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mr Charles Akpan, explained that the meeting adjourned till Monday to enable the union leaders to get across to their members on the mode of payment.

Among other things, the government had agreed to pay N40bn, being the pending Earned Academic Allowance of the university teachers overdue since November 2019.

Out of the amount, N30bn would be paid on or before November 6, while the remaining N10bn would be spread equally over two tranches to be paid in May 2021 and February 2022.

The two parties equally agreed to the planned release of N30b for the revitalisation of the education sector.

The government offered to pay N20b as funding for the revitalisation of public universities by January 2021 as well as seek for sources of alternative and additional funding of the university system, among other conclusions.