ASUU Strike: Nigerian government meets again with lecturers today 

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU) and the federal government will again meet today, Tuesday, to resolve the ongoing warning strike by the lecturers.

The meeting was confirmed by senior officials of the union Monday night.

“We will be meeting with the federal government by 3 p.m.,” an official said.

Also, according to one the sources, “the federal government has not paid our salaries, however, they have paid those who are enrolled on IPPIS$.

“This is a warning strike but if it is not resolved, we will proceed to indefinite strike. The workers cannot be asked to go back to work without being paid,” the source said.

The meeting will be the second since the union started its warning strike last week Monday.

Crisis

ASUU asked its members in federal universities across the country to begin a two-week warning strike in response to the government’s decision to stop the February salaries of lecturers who have not registered on the salary (IPPIS) payment platform.

The union is also protesting poor funding, the proliferation of state universities and non-implementation of previous agreements.

The federal government had reached an interim agreement with the striking university, lecturers to integrate the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) into the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

The IPPIS is the government’s accountability software that has been made compulsory for all public institutions, mainly for personnel payroll.

ASUU is opposed to the use of IPPIS for lecturers saying it does not consider some of the ‘peculiar’ operations of universities.

The union then developed the UTAS which it wants the government to adopt for universities. The union also told its members not to register with it (IPPIS).

The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chris Ngige, had announced the ‘agreement’ after a meeting between both parties.

Mr Ngige said the two parties will reconvene on Monday or Tuesday after the ASUU delegation deliberates with its National Executive Council (NEC).

More crisis

In a related development, the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has also withdrawn its support for the implementation of the IPPIS, for its members across Nigerian universities.

The workers’ union, which had initially supported the initiative, said its trust in the system was betrayed “as reflected in the various irregularities noticed in the payment of February salaries of its members.”

The Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) also condemned the irregularities observed in the February salaries of its members paid by the government, saying the deployment of the IPPIS disregarded its members’ peculiar allowances, and particularly the Peculiar Earned Academic Allowance (PEAA).