The leadership of ASUU, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, and Nigeria’s government delegation are to meet later this week to avert another strike by the university lecturers.
Officials of government from the ministries of education and labour, and other relevant government agencies are expected to attend the meeting.
Dr Adelaja Odukoya, chairman, Lagos Zone of ASUU, revealed that the meeting would hold this week, going by assurances from the government side.
“As a union we are not opposed to negotiation and amicable resolution of issues. In this case, we are awaiting the government team to call us for the meeting. They said it is going to be this week, we are waiting. They have not given us the date but we are waiting.
“There is no doubt that we have given the government enough time to meet the demands, we made, and do the needful. We met with them on August 2, this year and following the meeting, we gave them till the end of August to do certain things. The deadline lapsed and up until now, none of the demands have been met. We have given them more than enough time.
“Let us be hopeful that they would do the needful this time around. But people can see that ASUU has been reasonable and considerate enough,” he said.
ASUU had, on December 23 2020, called off a 9-month industrial strike, believing that the N40 billion revitalization fund, as well as the Earned Academic Allowance, pledged to government-owned universities would be paid.
