Representatives of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, led by the President, Biodun Ogunyemi on Monday walked out of a meeting with a federal government delegation.
The government delegation was led by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige.
Monday’s meeting was in continuation of the series of meetings between both parties to find a solution to the ongoing nationwide strike by the university lecturers.
ASUU had on November 4, 2018, embarked on an indefinite strike to press home their demand for improved funding of universities well as the implementation of previous agreements with the government.
The ASUU delegation arrived at the ministry of Education, venue of the meeting at exactly 5:00 p.m. while the federal government delegation arrived an hour later, at 6: p.m.
At the start of the meeting, the Labour Minister expressed hopes that the meeting would produce a consensus on most of the contentious.
He assured the union that attention would be given to three major demands – salary shortfall, university revitalisation and earned allowances of lecturers.
However, before the meeting could properly come to a close, ASUU delegation staged a walkout, refusing to brief journalist on the cause of the walkout.
Ngige, on his part told journalists the union representatives were only dissatisfied with the decision reached.
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“There is no walk out because we even broke into a session that is on camera. We can say they were dissatisfied because he is a union leader so if he doesn’t get 100 per cent he might not be smiling.
“Note that any meeting you have and people come out smiling, that means somebody has cheated the other,” he said.
He however, did not elaborate on what decisions that displeased the teachers but expressed optimism that the strike would soon be called. soon.
According to Ngige, negotiations are still ongoing with ASUU and the federal government will try to have an agreement with the lecturers before Christmas in other to allow affected university students return to school in January.
