ASUU: Education Minister in secret meeting with VCs

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.
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