The hope raising meeting between the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, and the Federal Government ended in a deadlock on Tuesday.
The meeting which was expected to end with a positive turn around in favour of ASUU and the Nigerian students ended on a disappointing note as many students who stayed up for an update on the outcome of the meeting were sorely disappointed at the outcome.
The meeting held at the headquarters of the National Universities Commission, where the Federal Government’s team met with the representatives of ASUU.
Speaking on the meeting a top ASUU official said“The meeting with the FG’s team was headed by Professor Nimi Briggs and it started by 12:00pm and ended by 3:00pm. There was no new offer on the table, they simply begged us to call off the strike”.
Confirming the news another top official said, “ The lecturers left angrily, though we cannot really ascertain what was discussed with them as you can see, we were not invited, but the proposal presented was rejected”.
A member of the ASUU National Executive Committee who asked to remain anonymous also confirmed the development saying that the Federal Government was not serious with the negotiations.
“They are not serious. I can’t go over the details with you because the president is responsible for disseminating the information. The proposal presented was unreasonable. There is no hope in sight”.
Ben Gong, the spokesperson for the ministry of education, when contacted told correspondents that the minister of education would brief the press on Thursday.
Professor Emmanuel Osodeke the ASUU president, when reached noted that he was in a meeting and would get back to correspondents. He was yet to do so as at the time of filing this report
Later on Tuesday night, Osodeke in an interview with one a correspondents, said, ‘‘It wasn’t good,” referring to the meeting.
“We didn’t sign anything; they did not come with anything good. I can’t go into details. We will talk to our members first before we talk to the press. We represent our members.’’
ASUU had embarked on a strike on Monday, February 14,2022 following the failure of the government to meet some of the lingering demands of the union.
