The battle of wits between the Federal Government and the striking lecturers continued on Friday as the supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike, met with all vice-chancellors of federal universities in Abuja.
Journalists who got wind of the meeting were however barred from attending the meeting which was held behind closed doors at the Minister’s office.
According to a reliable source at the ministry, the meeting was apparently called by the minister to discuss with the VCs modalities for carrying out the directive of re-opening the shutdown universities on the stipulated December 4 deadline by the FG.
They were said to have also deliberated on the next line of action for government should the ASUU members shun the directive.
Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Julius Okojie, was said to have also attended the meeting.
Federal Government had on Thursday ordered an immediate re-opening of all universities shut as a result of the strike and equally threaten to sack any of the lecturers who flout the directive.
The directive according to the minister was on account of fresh conditions given by ASUU to end its industrial action which has paralysed the university system for almost five months.
Part of the conditions contained in ASUU’s letter to the Federal Government was that it should settle the four months salary owed its members as well as begin the process of releasing the N200 billion the President promised to inject into the universities within two weeks time frame.
ASUU had requested that the Attorney General of the Federation be part of the signatory to the new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the agreements recently reached between the union and the President.
Read more at Independent
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