FG To Meet With ASUU Monday, SSANU Friday

The Federal Government is set to resume talks this week with some of the tertiary institutions that are currently on strike in the country. 

The committee set up by the FG to renegotiate the 2009 FG-ASUU agreement will meet with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Monday (today) while the committee plans to have a meeting with the Joint Action Committee of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and allied institutions (NASU) on Friday. 

The committee, which is led by Prof Nimi Briggs, was given a three-month deadline for the renegotiation which ended on Tuesday, June 7th, 2022.

According to PUNCH, a source in ASUU revealed that the Union is set to meet with the committee in Abuja today.

The ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, also revealed that meetings would continue this week. 

“We are resuming the meeting this week and we have an invitation this week. The renegotiation meeting will only end if we have called off the strike.

“Since the strike is still on, the meeting cannot end. We do not have any problem with the committee. When we do, we will communicate with the committee,” he said.

The SSANU President, Ibrahim Mohammed, confirmed that the union’s meeting with the committee would hold on Friday. 

ASUU has been on strike since February 14th, 2022 to drive home its demands from the FG which include the renegotiation of the 2009 FG-ASUU agreement, payment of earned academic allowances, and funds for the revitalization of public universities, promotion arrears, and poor funding of state universities.

Other demands include the deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) and regular payment of salaries to lecturers. 

SSANU began its industrial action with a two-week warning strike which started on March 27th, 2022. Upon its expiration, the strike was extended by another two weeks on April 10 2022 which is still ongoing.