IPPIS: ASUU alleges Nigerian govt fueled varsity crisis with non-payment of members’ salaries

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU) on Tuesday accused the Federal Government of fueling the crisis which led to the ongoing strike by varsity lecturers.

The President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi stated this at a meeting between the union and the federal government put together to find a lasting solution to the disagreement between both parties.

The meeting convened by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige and took place at the Conference Hall of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Abuja.

The ASUU chief said government’s decision to stop payment of university lecturers’ salaries prompted the union to proceed on the two-week warning strike.

He said: “We had a Memorandum of Action we were tracking and what that means to us is that government actually ignited the ongoing crisis. Not when the government introduced IPPIS and tried to sell it through dialogue, but when it resorted to the use of force.

“Government officials ignited the crisis by stopping the payment of salaries of our members citing Mr. President before their speech as a directive and they insisted that universities must enroll on IPPIS platform at a time we thought we were engaging ourselves.

“Well we have responded positively but we rescind and resist descent to the logic of force.

“It should be recalled that during our meeting with Mr. President on 9th January 2020, Mr. President did promise to set up a high powered enquiry to look into how much would be allowed in terms of management of resources and personnel of the universities.

“Within the limits of the constitution, ASUU was still expecting the fulfilment of this promise, when the union was confronted with the unilateral stoppage of salaries by government.

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“IPPIS is simply incapable of accommodating academic staff salary structure at the tertiary level and the government should take full responsibility for the consequences of the ongoing action.

“It was never mentioned in any of our memoranda that bursars of Universities will be the ones to generate budgets for the national assembly or address the main streaming of our allowances.”

Ngige, who had earlier assured the union of government’s resolve to address the matter, told the university lecturers it was not a time to start apportioning blame.

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