After the end of the marathon meeting
with President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja on
Monday, which lasted for about 13 hours, the
leadership of the Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU) said they would now go and brief
their members on the details of the discussions.
The Chairman of ASUU, Dr. Nasir Fagge, told the
reporters in the early hours of November 5, 2013,
Tuesday, at the State House that the leaders would
take the President's message back to their members.
Dr. Fagge, who wore broad smiles afar emerging from
the meeting venue at about 3.35 a.m. did not say
what the message was when he spoke with the
correspondents.
"Well we have had lengthy meeting with Mr.
President, rubbing minds on how best to
address the problem of University education in
this country.
"And we now have a message from Mr.
President we are going to take to our members.
And we are expecting that our members will
respond appropriately to the message of Mr.
President."
On whether the lecturers are going back to the
classroom, he said: "That is up to our members."
Asked what the message was, he said: "I can't tell
you. It's not for you. It is for our members."
If impressed with the message, he said: "Don't put
words into my mouth. Our members will determine
that."
The Labour Minister, Emeka Wogu, who also spoke
with the press, just said what was discussed did not
go beyond the 2009 agreement.
The meeting with the President had begun at the
Presidential Villa, Abuja, around 2.40 p.m. on
Monday, after ASUU had also met with the President
of the Senate, Senator David Mark.
It would be mentioned that it was the first meeting
between the striking union and President Goodluck
Jonathan since the strike began 1 July, shutting
down almost all state and Federal Government
owned universities in Nigeria.
The Federal Government had initially offered the
striking lecturers N30billion to pay for allowances
piled up since government and the union hammered out an agreement in 2009. Government also offered N100billion to pay for improvements of facilities in the universities and later increased this to N200billion on a yearly basis.
ASUU rejected the offer as too small and insisted on government implementing in full the 2009 agreement.

My only headache about all these is that these guys are still talking. with the initial enthusiasm, I was waiting for the morning whistle back to school. I call this toying with people's future. #fedup

Behind every dark cloud, there‘s always a silver lining. I hope dis is d last meeting that would bring out d silver lining frm dis strike‘s dark cloud. Still, i watch, cnt wait 2 see d end of dis season film.