The Federal Government has said it is still reviewing the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding which it signed with the Academic Staff Union of Universities.The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, stated this in an interview with our correspondent in Abuja.
ASUU had on November 15, 2021 given the Federal Government an ultimatum of three weeks over the failure of the government to meet some of its lingering demands. The lecturers had also threatened to embark on another round of industrial action, following the unfaithfulness in the implementation of the Memorandum of Action the Federal Government signed with the union upon which the year 2020 strike action was suspended. The National President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, in an interview with The PUNCH on December 5, 2021 lamented that despite the meetings with the minister of labour; only one of the demands by ASUU had been met.When contacted by our correspondent, Ngige simply said the review of the MOU was in progress.
He said, “The plans are ongoing for the review of the implementation of the MOU. We will review the ones that have been met and the ones that have not been met.”Meanwhile, sources on Friday told our correspondent that ASUU would decide whether to go on strike or not following the outcomes of its zonal meetings scheduled to end on December 15, 2021.
The sources who confided in our correspondent also shared a document which contained the breakdown of locations where the zonal meetings would take place.Our correspondent noted that the meetings would span between December 9 and December 15 in Abuja, Nsukka, Ibadan, Yola, Benin, Akure, Lagos, Bauchi, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Sokoto and Kano.“The decision on whether to go on strike or not would depend on the outcome of the meetings from each zone”. The sources added