The Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had and ended their closed-door meeting on Wednesday.
A common ground was found on an agreement that all contentious issues would be amicably resolved to avert a strike.
The closed-door meeting, which began around 4:30 pm and lasted over two hours at the Ministry of Education headquarters in Abuja, included Education Ministers Prof. Tahir Mamman and Dr. Yusuf Sununu, along with other top officials.
ASUU President Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, leading the union’s team, informed newsmen afterward that negotiations had started, expressing hope that the federal government would adhere to the agreed terms.
“We have discussions on all the issues and we have given assignments to some people to look at and agree on the way forward,” he said.
On the two-week ultimatum issued by the union, Osodeke said they would go back and give the details of the meeting to their members.
“What is important is that we have started the process and our prayers is that we resolve it for the interest of our young men and the interest of the nation.
“The government has spent one year in office and we have not been called for any formal meeting. Today we are having the first formal meeting. There is a process we have started and we are going to set deadlines. We are going to meet to look at what has been done on those issues and we hope the process will continue,” he said.
On his part, Mamman said that consultations would commence immediately to eliminate the problems bedeviling education.
“We’ve had a very good meeting and a very productive one. We’ve discussed progress on how to ensure that the system works well and lots of the issues we talked about are those that we inherited and some that are ongoing. We discussed them all without exception and we have a consensus on the way forward.
“A lot of consultations will continue on some information we don’t have, which is beyond the scope of the ministry and which will require us to connect with our colleagues in other ministries.
“But the most important thing is that we had a very good meeting and agreed to continue with the consultations to overcome the problems bedevilling education in Nigeria,” he said.
ASUU had threatened to embark on a nationwide strike due to the inability of the Nigerian Government to meet its demands.
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