MINISTER of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, says the federal government has reached a partial agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over the union’s ongoing strike.

But the leadership of ASUU said the industrial action remains ongoing as the government in the past has made mere promises without any concrete action.

Ngige had pointed out that some of the agreements in the Memorandum of Action signed between ASUU and the FG in 2017 will soon be implemented.

“I am happy to report that we touched some areas of understanding in implementation from the memorandum of action which we agreed to in 2017,”

“Some of these areas we have substantial compliance and some other areas have not been fully dealt with.

“Like the issue of shortfall in salaries of some federal universities’ workers and lecturers, ASUU has given a list to the accountant general’s office and we have agreed that by Wednesday that list should be cross-checked by the presidential initiative on continuous auditing. So, the accountant general’s office is to get back to us by Wednesday.

“We also have the issue of earned allowances, revitalisation, these are issues of 2009 agreement and partial implementation and we have agreed on the modus operandi to look into the fund situation, this is due to low revenue on the part of the government.

“We have agreed on what we are going to do to make sure that the outstanding amount is handled in a way that all parties will be properly accommodated.”

Ngige also said that the ministry of education will set up a committee to engage the Nigeria Governors’ Forum on ways to better fund state-owned universities.

But speaking with journalists after the meeting, Biodun Ogunyemi, National President of ASUU, said there was no concrete development yet to warrant the suspension of the strike.

“All we have heard today are just promises. There’s nothing to take back to our members,” Ogunyemi said.