ASUU strike continues as FG, union meet again Friday

Hope of reopening universities soon appears dimmed as the discussion between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities over a number of contentious issues has been moved to Friday.

The meeting, initially slated for Wednesday, according to the Ministry of Labour and Employment in a statement on Wednesday night, has been moved to Friday.

The strike was declared since March this year and meetings had been held on a number of vexed issues and no concrete agreement reached yet

ASUU had opposed the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System used in settling workers’ salaries by the FG and instead, developed the University Transparency and Accountability Solution which is currently undergoing test-run by the National Information Technology Development Agency.

The Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities and the Non-Academic Staff Union equally proposed the University General and Peculiar Personnel and Payroll System in place of the IPPIS.

This followed the complaints against the IPPIS which allegedly caused salary delays and shortchanged the university workers.

Spokesman for Ministry of Labour and Employment, Charles Akpan, said in a text message on Wednesday that the meeting with the ASUU leaders would hold at the minister’s conference hall.

The government said it had agreed to pay N30bn earned academic allowance, N20bn for the revitalization of the education sector and the arrears of salaries to the university teachers, adding that the only outstanding issue was the disagreement over the payment platform.

But ASUU insisted that the government had not met its demands and hinted that the resolution of the eight-month strike was not in sight.

This is coming as ASUU has said it will not call off the strike even if the federal government withdraws the IPPIS as a means of paying them.

The Benin Zone of the union expressed doubt over the capability and commitment of Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, to midwife any peaceful resolution of the issues that led to the strike.

The Coordinator, ASUU Owerri zone, Mr Uzo Onyibinama, stated the union’s position on the IPPIS in a press briefing held at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State.

He said Federal Government was feeding the public with lies about the strike, stating that the main reason for the strike was the government’s inability to keep previous agreements and not about IPPIS as being propagated by the government.

He said the union would not call off the strike until all its demands were met by the federal government.

Onyibinama said, “For the avoidance of doubt, the issues in contention remain revitalisation fund for public universities, arrears of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), visitation to universities, proliferation of state universities and issues of governance in them, and conclusion of the renegotiation of the 2009 FGN-ASUU agreement. The later issue of IPPIS was a new introduction and a diversion as no university in the world runs such a system.

“Instead of apologising to the Nigerians and hiding their heads in shame on the serial failures of Governments particularly the present Government which came on the mantra of ‘change’, the duo of Ministers Chris Ngige and Emeka Nwajiuba have been feeding Nigerians with lies and half-truth.

“Ministers Ngige and Nwajiuba have on many occasions on various media organisations said that agreement have been reached on virtually all the issues that necessitated the seven months old strike

“They should please tell Nigerians, who are their masters, those agreements that have been reached and implemented. As far as our Union is concerned, no agreement has been reached on any of the demands.”

He also said, “So, instead of constantly running to the press, Ngige and Nwajiuba should sit down and painstakingly do the work that they are paid to do. It is on record that the date given by the Minister Ngige to reach our union with government improved position has elapsed without any communication.

“The proposed new timelines for implementation of some proposals such as the appointment of a new team for renegotiation of the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement, gazetting of visitation panels among others have elapsed without any implementation. This shows the insincerity on the part of the Government.

“On the IPPIS, our union has been consistent in rejecting the platform as it compromises the autonomy of the university system and a threat to national security considering that the software is hosted in Washington, the USA with a sub-platform at Gombe State.”