Strike: Again, FG, ASUU fail to reach agreement as govt makes new proposal

                       Government officials meet with ASUU leaders over strike action

💅by Prince Bawa Joe

The Federal Government (FG) and the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) did not reach an agreement yesterday over the ongoing two-week warning strike embarked on by the union. 

 The meeting, which lasted till late night, was the second as the two parties seek to resolve issues raised by ASUU. Meanwhile, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, stated that the Federal Government had tabled a new proposal regarding the impasse over the Integrated Payroll Personal Information System (IPPIS) enrollment for members of the union. Both the FG and ASUU did not reveal to journalists what the proposal was.

Ngige said that the issues under consideration ranged from funding, revitalization of public universities, earned academic allowances to salaries shortfalls. Ngige added that; “the issue of IPPIS, we’ve also discussed and options, solutions were advanced and government has a proposal which we are giving to ASUU. “Some of these issues that are outstanding, the ASUU’s team will take them back to their bigger council to be on the same page with them before they get back to government. “We have also agreed that the tentative time to get back to government would be before the weekend runs out. “We expect ASUU to get back to government in writing and there is need for other meeting on that, you’ll be informed,” he said. The two-week warning strike, which the union declared, will elapse on Monday next week. ASUU declared the strike mainly to protest the non-payment of salaries of their members who failed to enroll into the federal government’s IPPIS. ASUU’s president, prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, in his remark, noted that they have improved on where they stopped in the previous meeting. He said that they had what they can call “concrete proposals to our members.” “But, as we usually say, those of us here can’t make final pronouncement on any of the proposals. We have assured government’s team that we will report faithfully to our principals and get back to government accordingly,” Biodun said.