Speaking with journalists after about four hours meeting between the union and the government negotiating team, said ASUP members were not in a hurry to call off the strike. Awuzie added that the union would meet again on Tuesday with the government. He said, “We have had deliberations. We have looked at the issues. We have made some progress. We are likely to continue very earlytomorrow morning. If we fought there, you would not see us smiling. “All of us are patriots. We are talking about one thing: The good of educational system in Nigeria. There are no adverse roles in this struggle. There are no winners, there are no losers. “We all appreciate the decay and the rot in the system. And we think that, that is a very important sector of our national life which has to be propelled.” Asked when the strike would be called off, Awuzie simply said, “It’s not over.” He however expressed optimism that all grey areas in the agreement would be “resolved very soon.” Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqqayattu Rufai, debunked media reports that she had promised an end to the strike on Monday. She however reiterated the fact that the strike might soon be called off going by the extent of deliberations between the two parties. Rufai said, “Based on what we have done so far, the strike may be called off. “Today as you have seen, we have met. We have made progress and of course we are still talking. Even tomorrow at 10am, we have another meeting with ASUU. So, we are making progress.” Labour and ProductivityMinister, Chief Emeka Wogu, also expressed optimism that the ongoing negotiations would end with more concrete resolutions. He said: “We are working seriously to make sure that we resolve the issues that have arisen from the strike. We have made progress. We believe that at the end of full discussions on this strike, we will come to a conclusion that will be more lasting than the previous ones. Summary. At this juncture we can confirm that the ASUP indefinite strike is still very effective after the first day of the NEC meeting yesterday. Although the meeting would continue today till friday but the possibility ofsuspending the strike is very slim. This is owing to the fact that after series of negotiation with government representatives they have done nothing towards implementing even morethan 2% of the ASUP demands. ASUP, according to our source believe giving in at this point in time would mean the over 9 week strike was a waste. The strike has not been called of yet, and the meeting still continues today. we will let you know the outcome.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 08:12:23 +0000
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