Nigeria’s federal government has assured that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will call off its ongoing strike soon, and academic activities will resume in earnest.
This, it said, is because of its commitment to resolve contending issues with the university based unions.
ASUU, Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU), and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) are currently on strike.
NASU and SSAN have, meanwhile, extended their strike by another two months.
But speaking after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, said the end of the strike is in sight.
The minister, who denied the allegation that the Federal Government was planning to create a different payment table for the unions, said the government had summoned all the relevant agencies, including the National Information Development Agency (NITDA), to brief it on the success so far recording in resolving the contentious issues that led to the ongoing strike by the unions.
Ngige, while speaking, said the government was interested in seeing the students going back to school.
He said the meeting of Thursday is expected to look at the progress report by the relevant bodies handling the crisis including NITDA on how far it has gone with the integrity test on the University Transparency and Accountability System (UTAS) which was proposed as an alternative platform by ASUU and the University Peculiar Personnel and Payroll System (U3PS) proposed by SSANU and NASU.
The minister said said he was waiting for the report of the Tripartite Plus Committee comprising the Ministry of Education, the Chief of Staff, Salaries and Wages Income Commission, the National University Commission (NUC) as well as the striking unions.
