The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Wednesday dared the federal government on the threat to stop salaries of lecturers for resisting enrollment on Integrated Personnel Payroll System (IPPIS), saying it “will not hesitate to activate a No Pay, No Work resolution of the union.”
ASUU president, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, disclosed this in Abuja while briefing newsmen on the outcome of the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the union at the Federal University of Technology, Minna, between December 7 and 8, 2019.
Ogunyemi said the union had developed an alternative to IPPIS, a prototype platform called University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), “which is currently about 40 per cent completion.”
According to him, universities should be allowed to implement it in place of IPPIS.
He said the attempt to impose enrollment on IPPIS on university lecturers by the federal government was a decoy to distract the Union from 2009 Agreement renegotiation.
He warned that members of the union had been “appropriately mobilised as part of the resolution at the NEC meeting in Minna to shut down federal universities across the country in the event that the federal government stops the salaries of ASUU members at the end of this month.”
“We salute the courage of our members for resisting the tactics of the accountant-general of the federation to cunningly migrate them to IPPIS platform.
“As resoled at the ASUU-NEC meeting at FUT Minna on December 7 to 8, 2019, should the accountant-general make bold his threat of stopping the salaries of our members, the Union shall activate its standing resolution of No Pay, No Work,” he said.
He appealed to students and other meaningful Nigerians to prevail on the government, saying, “ASUU struggles for a better university system and a transformed Nigeria has always been in their short and long-term interests.”
“NEC did not only reiterate its unequivocal rejection of IPPIS as an ill-wind that will blow the Nigerian university system no good, it also resolved that no amount of blackmail, intimidation and outright misinformation of the Nigerian public will make ASUU lose focus on its historic role as the conscience of the university system.”
He insisted that ASUU would resist government’s attempt to repudiate any aspect of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement which “provided a blueprint for the revitalisation of Nigerian Universities,” adding that the future of Nigeria was depended on it.
He said it was unfortunate that getting the government to fulfil its promise has remained a mirage, insisting that government must keep its promise “as the union shall do all it takes to protect the sanctity of the 2013 MoU.”
