There are indications that the two-week warning strike declared on Monday by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over the Integrated Payroll Personnel Information System (IPPIS) policy, has allegedly prompted the Federal Government to find a quick resolution to the issues.
After its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in in Enugu on Monday, March 9, ASUU through its President Biodun Ogunyemi, declared a two-week warning strike, as a reaction to the Federal Government’s alleged forceful imposition of IPPIS on the university system.
But in a statement on Tuesday, the Special Adviser, Media, to the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, Nwachukwu Obidiwe, said the union had been invited to a meeting for Thursday, March 12, even as the Minister also appealed to ASUU to reconsider its decision on the on-going strike in the interest of the nation.
Also invited to the meeting scheduled to hold at the Conference Room of the ministry, are the officials of the Ministries of Education and Finance as well as those of the National University Commission(NUC).
Ogunyemi confirmed to BusinessDay on Tuesday in a telephone conversation that the Government contacted the union for a meeting. He however, noted that despite the effort of the union to address the issues, the union was facing threats even as he assured they would not succumb to threats or intimidation.
“We have come up with an alternative when we met with President Buhari on January, with the impression that concerned agencies and ministries would call us to at least tell them about our alternative. We have taken it to the Senate; they said they would intervene, but what we have been getting since then has been this persistent threat. And we are not just seeing threat now, they are beginning to manifest because they paid our members salary in January without remitting the third party deductions- contributions to cooperatives, union take-off dues ,and so on,” he said.
“So if they have partially started to implement IPPIS we think we should tell them that they should not go that far because our members are capable of resisting them,” he said.
He said the universities are not part of civil service and warned the government not to take Nigerian universities to civil service.
“They should not take Nigerian universities to the point where the Vice Chancellor cannot even employ a graduate assistant without clearing with the Head of Service. That will introduce bureaucracy and universities don’t run like that all over the world,” he said.
ASUU has been having a protracted face-off with the Federal Government over the introduction of the IPPIS in October last year, which the government said was to ensure transparency in salary payment.
The Federal Government had maintained its position that all members of the union must be enrolled on the platform just like other government employees. The government had threatened that those who did not register for the IPPIS won’t be paid their salaries and there are indications that ASUU members have not been paid their February salaries because they have not been enrolled in the scheme.
However, ASUU had faulted IPPIS policy, claiming it was in gross violation of the autonomy of universities as enshrined in the Universities (Miscellaneous Provisions) Amendment Act 2003.
ASUU during the Enugu NEC meeting said in a conference that the strike was to compel the FG to implement the outstanding agreement and resolution of it Memorandum of Action it had with the union in 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2019.
Ogunyemi said, “Having discussed the provisions in the 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement, the 2013 Memorandum of Understanding and the 2017 Memorandum of Action, which have not been implemented, NEC resolved to embark on a two-week warning strike with effect from March 9, 2020 to compel the government to implement the agreement and resolution.”
The union said the forceful implementation of the IPPIS policy on its members was a usurpation of the internal affairs of the Nigerian university system, adding that the Federal Government want to wear down the autonomy of the universities and cripple their mandates.
“The needless siege of the Nigerian university system through the imposition of policies will only compound the woes of the universities, will ultimately further drag Nigeria into a morass of chronic underdevelopment,” he warned.
