By Tobias Lengnan Dapam with agency report
The meeting between the federal government and the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has again ended in deadlock, as the two parties could not resolve their differences on the issues that led to the strike.
The meeting which held on Wednesday at the instance of the Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike, was meant to address the lingering strike of the union, but has failed just like other previous ones.
Premium Times, an online news platform, reported that the nationwide strike by polytechnic lecturers is set to continue as an emergency meeting with the federal government could not meet the demands of the striking lecturers.
Speaking on the outcome of the meeting, an official of ASUP, Clement Chirman, said government has demonstrated nonchalant attitude towards the strike, saying their action in not encouraging.
Chirman, who is the National Publicity Secretary of ASUP, said the union’s leaders left its ongoing NEC meeting in Benue to attend Wednesday’s emergency meeting.
“The minister called ASUP for a meeting in his office. So we left our NEC meeting and came all the way to Abuja for the meeting yesterday (Wednesday),” Chirman, who was at the meeting, said.
He however said the Federal Government did not offer anything new to the union other than its former position, leaving the union with no choice than to reject the offer.
“As a union we have tried to ensure the strike ends and normal academic session restored but to no avail. Let me say that this is a strange approach by the government to end a serious matter.
We have returned this morning back to Yandev to continue with our NEC meeting,” he said.
It would be recalled that the ASUP-NEC meeting commenced on Monday in Yandev, Benue State and would continue till March 15, 2014.
