The federal government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will resume talks today on ongoing efforts at ending the eight-month strike by the varsity lecturers.
Spokesman for the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mr. Charles Akpan, who disclosed this to journalists Wednesday night, said the meeting would hold at the minister’s conference hall.
ASUU commenced an indefinite strike March over a dispute with the government on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and funding of the universities.
Akpan said the meeting would address various pending issues, including the contentious payment platform preferred by the union.
Union slams govt.
Meanwhile, the union has accused the federal government of prolonging the nationwide strike by the university teachers, insisting there was no going back on its rejection of the IPPIS.
The union, which described the federal government’s IPPIS as a liability to the nation’s public university system, said its University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) remained the only alternative to resolve the lingering industrial impasse.
ASUU Sokoto Zonal Coordinator Jamilu Shehu, in a statement issued to journalists Thursday in Katsina, accused the federal government of frustrating efforts to resolve issues that led to the lingering industrial action embarked upon by the university lecturers.
The Sokoto zonal office of ASUU comprises Usumanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto (UDUS); Umaru Musa Yar’Adua University, Katsina (UMYUK); Kebbi State University of Science and Technology, Aliero (KSUSTA); Sokoto State University (SSU), and Federal University, Dutsin-Ma (FUDMA), Katsina.
Shehu said the unnecessary delay in honoring the 2019 memorandum of understanding (MoU) and the adoption of the proposed University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) was a deliberate act by the federal government to prolong the nationwide strike.
The don accused Ngige of making mischievous statements about the union’s UTAS and threatening to invoke labour laws on striking members of the union, saying, “the utterances are not only misplaced, they shy away from the reality.”
“For about seven years now, ASUU had made its position clear by consistently rejecting the imposition of Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) on its members by the government, taking into cognizance the dangers inherent in it as far as the promotion of qualitative education is concerned in Nigeria.
“With the successful development of UTAS by ASUU, any further directive from the government for ASUU members to register with IPPIS for salary payment is suspicious and the union will continue to reject it, as IPPIS has proven to be a liability to the university system. That is why even other sectors who willingly enrolled are now complaining bitterly,” he said.
Shehu said beside IPPIS being a liability for the country’s university system, it’s also a total violation of the university autonomy as enshrined in the University (Miscellaneous Provision) Amendment Act of 2003.
In a related development, the University of Calabar chapter of the union has debunked rumours that the union had called off its eight-month- old strike.
Chairman of the chapter, Dr John Edor, debunked the rumour in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Calabar Thursday.
He was reacting to a statement on Twitter purportedly credited to the union, calling off the strike.
“As I talk to you now, ASUU does not have a Twitter account, so I wonder where that statement came from. As far as I am concerned, it is fake news,” he said.
The chairman, however, said a meeting between ASUU and the federal government on the lingering strike may hold Friday.
The union has been on an indefinite strike since April 4 and held series of meetings with the federal government to resolve the impasse without success.
