Federal Government cancels meeting with ASUU leaders
The meeting rescheduled for December 14, 2020 with the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been canceled by federal government. The meeting was supposed to discuss over the on-going strike embarked upon by the university lecturers.
The meeting, convened by the Chris Ngige, Minister of Labor and Employment – to iron out some issues that had prolonged the strike, was earlier scheduled to hold last week but it was postponed following a misunderstanding between the parties.
Daily Times reports that the nine-month-old strike, which was compounded by the introduction of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), had paralyzed academic activities in all public universities.
Charles Akpan, the spokesman of the Ministry of Labor and Employment, who disclosed the cancellation via a short message sent to our correspondent, did not state why the meeting was cancelled.
He wrote, “Good morning colleagues. Please note that the meeting with ASUU earlier scheduled for today is cancelled.”
It would be recalled that the government had during the November 27 meeting with the union, pledged to pay N40 billion as the Earned Allowance and N30bn for the revitalization of the university system bringing the total payment to N70 billion.
