National president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said the union will meet with the federal government today to resume talks on the ongoing strike by university teachers.
Osodeke made this known while speaking on Politics Today, a Channels Television’s political show.
The ASUU president said the union was willing to call off the strike if the Federal Government agreed to its demands at today’s meeting.
“If we go into that meeting tomorrow and the government says, what you have bargained for, we are willing to sign, the strike will be called off,” he said.
Recall that since the end of the renegotiation meeting led by Prof. Nimi Briggs, the government has yet to broker a truce with ASUU.
The president had given the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu a two-week ultimatum to address the demands of ASUU, after the submission of the ASUU report by the Briggs committee.
Osodeke alleged that the government used the university unions to commit fraudulent activities in the guise of Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system.
He said, ‘’We have been shouting all along that IPPIS is a fraud, we have told them that for 16 years they siphoned our money with IPPIS, they punished our members because of it. Now, they know, some foreign bodies forced it on the people.’’
ASUU went on strike on February 14, 2022, following the failure of the federal government to meet some of its demands.
Some of the demands include, the release of revitalisation funds for universities, renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, release of earned allowances for university lecturers, and deployment of the UTAS payment platform for the payment of salaries and allowances of university lecturers.