ASUU, Senate meeting ends in deadlock

Efforts by the Senate leadership led by the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, to avert the one-week warning strike already embarked on by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Wednesday met a brick wall, as the academics failed to shift ground.

Briefing National Assembly Correspondents shortly after a closed-door meeting with the Senate leadership, the President of ASUU, Biodun Ogunyemi confirmed that the union has not called off the strike; saying they will meet with their members before any decision can be arrived at.

However, he said that ASUU was ready to work with the senate and the federal government, in line with the mandate of the members of the union to resolve the strike, adding that ASUU does not enjoy embarking on strike except they are pushed to the wall.

On his part, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Tertiary Education, Barau Jibril, who addressed press at the end of the closed-door session, said the meeting produced a headway towards resolving the impasse between the government and ASUU.

According to him, “the meeting resolved to set up a sub-committee, comprising of four members, to explore the headway which the Senate has spotted to ensure permanent resolution of the government, ASUU faceoff”.

He said “the committee will address the issues in the conflict”, and will meet with the ministries of budget, education, finance, labour and productivity, to capitalise on the leeway out of the strike.

While pointing out that the meeting will commence on Thursday, Jubril also said that the resolutions arrived at by the ASUU, Senate Sub-Committee and the federal government will be communicated to the Senate in one week.