The meeting which held at the Federal Ministry of Labour headquarters was to find a lasting solution to the ongoing strike by the university lecturers.

While addressing journalists at the end of the meeting which lasted about four hours, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, said the meeting will reconvene at the instance of the union, Premium Times reports.

Ngige also told journalist after the meeting that the aggregate amount the lecturers are asking for is beyond the N50 billion ASUU claimed to be demanding for.

”If you aggregate the total amount of money involved, it is beyond N50 billion. We are paying in several compartments and these are debt from 2009 to 2012. We have started defraying the earned allowances there and released N15.4 billion for shortfall in the payment of salaries,” 

According to Premium Times, Ngige said government has released N163 billion from Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETfund) to satisfy some of the demands of ASUU.

”Today we have agreed to fund revitalization. Government has released from TETFUND account about N163 billion. The meeting will reconvene at the instance of ASUU. FG is not weak in the negotiation. The strike is not slipping out of our hands,” he said.

”We did not take a long time than we anticipated. We have other commitments but the important thing is that we have made substantial progress. We have reached some agreements in seven areas,” he said.

Meanwhile, the National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU) Prof Biodun Ogunyemi has said that the strike continues ASUU need to discuss with its members for further consultations.

”We have not suspended the strike, discussion will continue at a later date. We are going back to our members for further consultation,”

ASUU declared an indefinite nationwide strike on Sunday, November 4, 2018 at its NEC meeting held at the Federal University of Technology, Akure and since then, both the union and the Federal Government have been going back and forth to resolve the crisis