FG, ASUU MEETING DEADLOCKED

The meeting between the Federal Government and the Academy Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to end the three-day-old ASUU strike on Wednesday ended in deadlock.

Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufa’i, the Minister of Education, while briefing newsmen at the end of the meeting which was chaired by the Secretary of the Federal Government (SGF), Sen. Pius Ayinm, said that government pleaded with ASUU to call off the strike.

“I will still insist that and plead again that ASUU has to call off the strike, we have already agreed that we will continue to negotiate in terms of ensuring that all the issues at stake will have to be address,“ she said.

She urged students to be patient and to understood the situation in the country.

“Our students who are at home should be patient; they should understand the reality of what is happening because we are not happy that they are at home,“she added.

Rufa’i said the Federal Government was making effort to transform the country and was not pleased with the short falls in the universities.

The minister said that there was an agreement in September that within the period of two months, the meeting was supposed to have showed an appreciable progress.

She explained that the Federal Government could not implement the 2009 agreement with ASUU, due to the dissolution of governing council of some universities, adding that the committee was not able to work.

Rufa’i added that the committee would be reconstituted to ensure that it continued to work to ensure that the outstanding issues agreed upon were fully implemented.

“We have already agreed that we will continue to negotiate in terms of ensuring that all the issue at stake will have to be addressed.“
Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie,  ASUU Chairman, left the venue without answering questions from reporters.

ASUU is demanding that government should increase the retirement age of lectures to 70 years and change the procedure of appointing Vice Chancellors, among other demands. (NAN)-vanguard