ASUU has clarified some media reports after its recent meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari. The union’s national chairman, professor Biodun Ogunyemi said reports suggesting that President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the stoppage of salaries of lecturers who failed to register on IPPIS were false.
He said the union had always argued that IPPIS crisis could not be resolved without paying due attention to the foundational issues bedevilling the education sector.
Ogunyemi dismissed some media reports suggesting that President Muhammadu Buhari had ordered the stoppage of salaries of lecturers who failed to register on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS). Ogunyemi who said the meeting of ASUU with President Buhari January 9 was called solely to discuss IPPIS, which ASUU rejected, “and still rejects, for sound reasons.”
“At no point during the meeting did President Muhammadu Buhari put a closure to the ongoing discussion on ASUU’s preference for the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) or directed that the salaries of ASUU members to be stopped for failure to enrol on IPPIS,”
Ahmed said out of the 137,016 academic and non-academic staff members of the universities, 96,090 have been enrolled on IPPIS. She, therefore, urged ASUU to encourage the remaining 40,926 members to comply with the process. According to her, a desk has been opened in the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation for registration of university staff, assuring that peculiarity of the tertiary institutions will be accommodated.
Meanwhile, former vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos (UniLag), Professor Oye Ibidapo-Obe, has appealed to members of ASUU to enroll on the federal government’s IPPIS.
Ibidapo-Obe, who is the pro-chancellor of the Crawford University, Igbesa, Ogun state, urged the ASUU members to comply with the directive of the government concerning the IPPIS, adding that “he who pays the piper dictates the tune.”
