The Federal Government has opened talks with the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities on how to resolve the ongoing strike by the lecturers.

ASUU President Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, who confirmed the development on Wednesday said a meeting has been scheduled for 1:00 pm at the instance of the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu and the government negotiating team.

The Federal Government had in reaction to the strike, said the demands of Union were high in view of the current economic crisis being faced in the country, seeking fresh negotiation with ASUU.

Ogunyemi, however, said the N20 billion released by the Federal Government in September 2018 was not an issue and that N200 billion ought to have been released in October 2017.

This the Union said was in line with the 2013 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at which Government agreed to inject N1.3 trillion to fund universities at N220 billion yearly for five years.

ASUU said if the government fails to fund public universities the situation on campuses might degenerate worse than the already poor quality teaching and learning obviously in the majority of public primary and secondary schools, where even government officials prefer to patronize private schools

ASUU President insisted that the ‘No work no pay’ threat by the Federal Government could not be directed at the lecturers as the industrial action is legal in Nigerian labour law and international conventions which Nigeria is a signatory.

He said he was hopeful that the meeting scheduled for Thursday will be used to deliberate on resolving the issues at stake and not to continue to raise the alarm that past administrations made bogus agreements with the university teachers.

•Sourced from a Tribune report

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