NASS, ASUU, FG MEETING PARLEY IN DEADLOCK ! THE eight-hour parley between the Federal Government, the National Assembly and members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over the ongoing strike action on the non-implementation of the 9- point agreement it had with the government in 2009 ended in deadlock, on Monday. The deadlock was in spite of spirited efforts made by the government team, led by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, as well as members of the joint committee of the National Assembly on Education to also appeal to the ASUU executive to soft- pedal on some of their demands. ASUU, however, insisted on full implementation of the nine-point agreement reached with the government in October 2009. The protracted negotiation, which lasted for over eight hours, ended at about 8.30pm at the National Assembly venue of the parley. ASUU President, Dr Nasir Fagge, who led the team of the university teachers, insisted that, “It is either a 100 per cent implementation of the nine point agreement or nothing.” Chairman of the senate Committee on Education, Senator Uche Chukwumerije who presided at the meeting yesterday had passionately appealed to the ASUU team to please, “having explored all avenues to address the matter, the National Assembly is appealing to ASUU to give us two or three days or even a week to ruminate over all the positions reached and come back to us with a new position, particularly the non academic allowance that the Federal Government conceded to pay five per cent in the interest of our children who are staying idle at home and in fact roaming the streets.” The SGF who also joined in the appeal had explained to the teachers the difficulty of raising the huge amount of money required to off set the backlog of the arrears of their demands. He noted that it would require rigorous budget appropriation process to be able to raise the amount and that government would do anything within its powers to see as much of the funds that would be contained in the coming next year’s budget.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 03:05:52 +0000
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