The Federal Government has initiated new measures to avert a nationwide strike that could paralyse academic activities across all public universities in the country.
According to Daily Trust, government officials from the ministries of Labour and Employment, as well as Education, are planning a meeting with the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
The development comes ahead of the August-end deadline given by ASUU to shut down universities over unmet demands.
The union had staged a nationwide protest on Tuesday across campuses, disrupting academic activities and declaring its readiness to commence strike action if directed by its national leadership.
Speaking with journalists on Wednesday night, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, Mrs. Folasade Biriowo, confirmed that a meeting was scheduled for Thursday to avert the strike.
“The federal government is set to hold a meeting with the ASUU leadership this morning (Thursday) at the ministry to know the fate and avert the strike,” Biriowo, who is also a director in the ministry, said.
However, ASUU President, Chris Piwuna, said the union had yet to receive any formal invitation from the government.
“As of now, we’ve not been invited for any official meeting. Of course, if they invite us, we would go but we have not received any official invitation,” Piwuna, a professor at the University of Jos, told Daily Trust.
Among the contentious issues are the non-signing of the 2009 renegotiation agreement, which ASUU says is long overdue, non-payment of three-and-a-half months’ withheld salaries, non-payment of promotion arrears, and failure to release revitalisation funds for universities.
Other grievances include the non-remittance of third-party deductions, the renaming of the University of Maiduguri after late President Muhammadu Buhari, and what the union described as a “national embarrassment”, the ₦150,000 monthly retirement benefit for professors.
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