The federal government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Wednesday resumed talks on the 2009 agreement.
The chairman of federal government re-negotiation team, Wale Babalakin, while briefing journalists in Abuja, after a meeting that lasted several hours, said he was hopeful the meeting would yield positive results.
Mr Babalakin said there were lots of issues on the table out of which ASUU team presented more than 20 that were being looked into.
He said both sides were determined to put an end to the lingering problems in the system.
“We are hopeful that we are on a positive path to finalising the negotiation. There were very hectic discussions on topical issues, and both sides had extensive contributions for the benefit of the university system.
“It is the same negotiation, we had an interim discussion, that is over now, and we are back to where we left off. So it is a continuous negotiation. ASUU submitted its timetable today, and there are more than 20 issues in that timetable. It is not a single issue, but they will all be discussed,’’ Babalakin said.
The 2009 agreement was reached after two years of negotiation between the lecturers and a government team appointed by the then Education Minister Obiageli Ezekwesili.
The government team was led by the then Pro-chancellor, University of Ibadan, Gamaliel Onosode, while ASUU’s team was led by its then president, Abdullahi Sule-Kano.
Details of that agreement were viewed as confidential by both ASUU and the government, thus leaving the public to feed on sparse information thrown out at negotiation meetings.
The federal government and ASUU have been at loggerheads since 2009.
Over that period, agreements and promises were made but broken. The university education has been left to haemorrhage.
Between 1999 and 2018, ASUU had gone on strike for over 40 months – a grim reality that the federal government says it wants to turn into a forgettable past.
In February 2017, the minister of education, Adamu Adamu, constituted a committee “to engender sustainable peace, industrial harmony in tertiary institutions and resolve impending issues.”
The 16-member Federal Government/Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) 2009 Agreement Renegotiation Committee, had as chairman Babalakin, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN)
Meanwhile ASUU has provided some information on its renewed negotiation with the federal government.
ASUU says the two parties returned to where they stopped their negotiation in May 2018.
Speaking with journalists Wednesday night, the national president of ASUU, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, said the union hoped the process would not be truncated as it happened before.
”We resumed the suspended renegotiation of the 2009 with the federal government team today. We’ve started from where we stopped in May 2018. We hope the process would not be truncated as it happened before,” Mr Ogunyemi said.
