The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, made the appeal at a conciliation meeting between the Federal Government and the leadership of JUSUN.

This was contained in a statement by the ministry of labour and employment spokesman, Mr Charles Akpan, titled, ‘FG appeals to JUSUN to suspend the strike.’

Ngige was quoted as saying, “You are important people and that is why we waited to see if there could be an in-house conciliation with the Chief Justice of Nigeria but since progress was not made, we decided to exercise our mandate here as  Ministry of  Labour and Employment. Grant us peace and we are going to handle this matter in a way that doesn’t lose sight of what you are pursuing. I will do a report on this meeting and forward it to the President when he returns. I will make a commitment here. The Executive Order 10 and its application, granting autonomy to the judiciary which is topmost on your demand will be tackled because it is a constitutional issue. Even governors owe their office to the constitution. You don’t pick and choose what to obey. However, we must handle this matter with maturity and utmost patriotism,”

The FG team led by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, had offered to pay the salary arrears and the N30bn earned allowances of the university lecturers through the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System platform pending the roll-out of ASUU’s preferred platform, the University Transparency and Accountability Solution.

But the ASUU delegation led by its National President, Prof Biodun Ogunyemi, reportedly insisted that the university teachers would not enrol on the government salary platform.

The spokesman, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mr Charles Akpan, explained that the meeting adjourned till Monday to enable the union leaders to get across to their members on the mode of payment