“Our meeting today is blessed with injection of new hands, new faces and new minds. It is expected that our meeting today will be fruitful because we would have more hands helping us to resolve what is outstanding. You might also recall that the implementation committee of Needs Assessment Report to Nigerian Universities was just inaugurated. The Chairman of that Committee is Governor Gabriel Suswam. After the inauguration of that committee, we appealed to him to join us in this meeting that is following soon after. On this note, I am convinced that their desire to see this matter resolved is simply because of their commitment to national progress.” – stated the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim in his opening remark at a meeting held today between the striking workers and the committee appointed by the federal government.
The lingering deadlock between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Academic Staff Union of Universities [ASUU] appeared to have found a short-lived glimmer of hope that the conscription of the governor of Benue State, Gabriel Suswam as chairman of the implementation of Needs Assessment Report to Nigerian Universities would untangle the knot between the Federal government and ASUU. This is as 247ureports.com gathered that a meeting held with the Benue State governor and members of ASUU ended in a deadlock.
As learnt, the ASUU members appeared to have reached an agreement on many of the issues on the negotiation table except on two issues – which were – earned allowance and general university funding for infrastructural development.
To this effect, Senator Anyim expressed optimism that the Federal Government will ensure that the issues are resolved for the lecturers to return to classroom by next week. Another meeting has been scheduled for Monday.
