"There is no hope in sight,” says ASUU As Meeting With FG ends in Deadlock Again

The meeting between the Academic Staff Union of Universities and the Federal Government which was held on Tuesday 16th August ended in a deadlock.

A member of the ASUU National Executive Committee (NEC) who pleaded to be anonymous told The Punch that the Federal government is not still serious, adding that there is no hope in sight.

In his words: “They are not serious. I can’t go over the details with you because the president is responsible for disseminating the information. The proposal presented was unreasonable. There is no hope in sight”.

“The meet with the FG’s team was headed by Professor Nimi Briggs and it started by 12:00pm and ended by 3:00pm. There was no new offer on the table, they simply begged us to call off the strike”., another top ASUU official told The PUNCH.

A top ministry official also told The Punch that “The lecturers left angrily, though we cannot really ascertain what was discussed with them as you can see, we were not invited, but the proposal presented was rejected”

While the ASUU President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, and the spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, Ben Goong, are yet to make an official statement, the ASUU president has unofficially said that the meeting ended badly.

“It wasn’t good. We didn’t sign anything; they did not come with anything good. I can’t go into details. We will talk to our members first before we talk to the press. We represent our members,” Prof Osodeke told The Punch.

Meanwhile, recall that ASUU President had on Monday 15th Aug, in an interview with Channels TV, said the issue of UTAS/IPPS, one of their major demands, has been settled.

Listen to the union’s president saying it in the video HERE or below: