The Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have commenced negotiations to avert the pending industrial action threatened by the university union.
LEADERSHIP understands that the Federal Government delegation, at the closed-door meeting on Wednesday was led by the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman.
Mamman was quoted to have said the meeting would provide an opportunity for both parties to deliberate on issues also affecting the university system.
The ASUU President, Emmanuel Osodeke, who led the union’s delegation, told newsmen that the meeting was to deliberate on lingering issues affecting the universities and avoid the planned strike action.
“There are a lot of issues that are outstanding within the system and we believe that before now, they would have been taken care of.
‘The issues would have been resolved in line with the promise made by President Bola Tinubu and there would not be a strike in the university system.
“We hope that this meeting will be able to resolve some of these issues so that we can move forward as a country as well as our university system,” he said.
It would be recalled that ASUU has in recent days, accused the government of failing to fulfil agreements reached with the union and threatened to go on strike once the ultimatum given to the government to uphold its end of the bargain expires.