ASUU UPDATE: Again, Senate/ASUU Meeting Ends In Deadlock.

SIX days after a meeting between the Senate and the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU ended in stalemate, another interface between both parties again ended in deadlock yesterday. At the end of the eight hours meeting which ended 8.32 pm last night, there was no concrete agreement between the university lecturers and the lawmakers. Addressing journalists after the meeting, Chairman, Senate Committee on Tertiary Education, Senator Jibrin Barau, APC, Kano North, said both parties agreed with some of the issues raised, except one that had to do with their earned allowances, adding that they (ASUU) were going to make consultations with their members on the way forward.

Barau said: “You can see we have spent about 8 hours in this very important meeting. We have deliberated and thank God we have dealt with all the issues and we have agreed in all the issues except one. “We have adjourned to make consultations, every sections of the meeting will get back to his constituency and report to it what transpired. At a later that we will reconvene to thrash out the remaining issues. “Is about the earned allowances that need to be paid the university lecturers, the government due to the paucity of funds proposed certain amount of money but ASUU thought otherwise that the money was quite inadequate but he’s going back to his members to report to them and make consultations and later get back to us. “But we do hope they come up with good news that they have accepted the government offers” Efforts to speak to ASUU to get their own side of the story proved abortive as the president refused to speak with journalists. Meanwhile, ASUU yesterday said meetings and consultations were ongoing to ensure that government did the needful. Speaking with Vanguard yesterday, ASUU-UNILAG Chairman, Dr Laja Odukoya, said the one week warning strike of ASUU was still on, adding that there was possible of an indefinite strike should government fail to do the needful.