The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has commenced the mobilisation of its members ahead of planned strike action across the country.
Recall that ASUU said it would order its members to down tools if the Federal Government goes forward with its plan to stop salary payment to lecturers that fail to enroll in the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS).
The union said its congress members resolved to activate no pay any work as soon as the government carries on with the plan of stopping its members’ salaries.
The chairman of the University of Ibadan Chapter of ASUU, Professor Deji Omole, said the union was ready to pursue its stand on autonomy and infringement on FGN-ASUU agreement which IPPIS would erode.
Omole said the union was disappointed that the president could not be trusted on the promise that the FG will look into the matter and set-up committee to harmonise UTAS and IPPIS tabled before him at the last meeting.
According to him, “Our position is that the principles of IPPIS are in contradiction to the principles of the autonomy of the university system and the constitution is clear enough because each university has its legal pattern and it doesn’t have provision for IPPIS and it does not even capture the peculiarities of the university system.”
“We are ready for them. We are not slaves that can be subjected to routine humiliation by government appointees.”
Earlier, The Herald reported that Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Tuesday, dismissed suggestions that President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the stoppage of salaries of university lecturers yet to enrol into the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
Its President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, in a statement in Abuja, said that rumours to that effect circulated in the social media were fake.
He said that ASUU met with Buhari on Thursday, January 9, 2020, and discussed the IPPIS issue which the union had rejected “with sound reasons.
“To put the records straight, at no point during the meeting did President Buhari put a closure to the ongoing discussion on ASUU’s preference for the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS).”