The negotiation between Federal Government and striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is to resume on the 17th December, 2018.

Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment who gave the update on the negotiation which lasted for over 5 hours, explained that the meeting was aimed at resolving the five weeks strike declared by the lecturers.

He argued that the meeting identified one area to look for the fund for the revitalisation, that the appropriate government organ would be contacted on the issue.

“We have finished our deliberation for today. I am happy to report that that we touched some areas of understanding in implementation wise that from the memorandum of action which we agree to in 2017.

“Some of these areas we have substantial compliance and some other areas have not been fully dealt with. Like the issue of shortfall in salaries of some Federal Universities workers and lecturers.

“ASUU has given a list to the Accountant General’s office and we have agreed that by Wednesday that list should be crossed checked by the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Auditing.

“This is to find out really, whether those universities are actually it is the places they have to visit and pay the outstanding lecturers there. So the Accountant General Office is to get back to us by Wednesday.

“We also have the issue of Earn Allowances, revitalisation, these are issues of 2009 agreement and partial implementation and we have agreed on the modules operandi to look into the fund situation, this is due to low revenue on the part of government.

“Same goes for other allowances, we have agreed on what we are going to do to make sure that the outstanding amount is handled in a way that all parties will be properly accommodated.

“We also discuss the issue of state universities and agreed also that even if education is on the concurrent list, the universities should be properly funded and staffed, so that we do not produced half-baked students from those universities.

“In realisation of this, the Ministry of Education will set up a committee, that would engage the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, and the Minister of Education has taken steps in that direction to formalised the interaction.

“Thus discussion are fruitful and we do hope that in the next adjourn date we would have had the requisite result on the few agreement reached today,” he said.

The Minister said he hoped with the agreement reached that the union would call-off the strike in order for the students to go back to school, saying for those who have exams can go and take their exams.

Also speaking, Biodun Ogunyemi, ASUU National President, said the parties had a useful discussion.

“Our own understanding is that, we heard promises made on the part of government, we shall await the report on all the issues, which they have made the promises.

“Only after that, we can get back to our members to take a decision,” he said.