Leke Baiyewu, Abuja
The second meeting between the Senate and the Academic Staff Union of Universities ended in a stalemate on Monday night.
The meeting was adjourned indefinitely.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on
Tertiary Education and TETFund, Jibrin Barau, who spoke to journalists
after the meeting, said the parley, which lasted for about eight hours,
was able to resolve all the issues raised by the lecturers except one
bordering on payment of arrears.
He said, “You can see that we’ve been
talking for about eight hours. We have deliberated and, thanks to God,
we have resolved all the issues; we have agreed on all issues except
one. We have adjourned to make consultations.
“Every section (stakeholder) in this
meeting will go back to their base or constituency and report what
transpired (at the meeting) and at a later date reconvene to trash out
the remaining issue. We have resolved all the issues but it remains
one.”
When asked what the last issue was, he
replied, “It is about the earned allowances that need to be paid to the
university lecturers. The government, due to paucity of fund, proposed a
certain amount of money but ASUU thought otherwise; that the money was
quite inadequate. The union said it was going back to its members, make
consultations and get back to us. We do hope they will come back with
good news.”
When asked when the next meeting with
ASUU would hold, he said, “It will be after due consultations. We will
report back to you. We will tell you (about) when next we will meet.”
The leadership of ASUU declined to speak to journalists after the meeting.
The Senate had last Wednesday failed to stop ASUU from continuing with its ongoing one-week warning strike, which ends today.
The first meeting also had senators and
officials of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour and
Employment in attendance.
While the Minister of Education, Adamu
Adamu, who was absent at the meeting, was represented by the Minister of
State for Education, Anthony Anwuka.
No comments:
Post a Comment