ASUU Set For Strike
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has started a two-week warning strike over issues relating to the 2009-2019 memorandum of understanding/action with the Federal Government.
According to ASUU, the warning strike which commenced on Monday is to get FG to implement all outstanding issues.
The President of ASUU, Biodun Ogunyemi, who briefed journalists after the National Executive Committee meeting in Enugu on Monday, revealed that the issues include: the alleged imposition of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), Poor funding and proliferation of State universities.
Prenkoloaded gathered that ASUU held its National Executive Council meeting at the Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Enugu, on Saturday and Sunday, where issues such as the IPPIS and the Federal Government’s failure to honour the 2009 agreements were discussed.
It was learnt that the Federal Government would this week pay February salaries of its workers, including university lecturers, who had registered on the IPPIS.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zanaib Ahmed, in an interview at a management retreat in Kano on Thursday, had said lecturers who did not enroll for the IPPIS would not get their February salaries.
The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had in October last year directed all Federal Government workers to enroll in the IPPIS to ensure transparency.
But ASUU kicked against the directive on the grounds that it negated the principle of autonomy of universities.
The union directed its members to shun government officials sent to universities between October 25 and November 7, 2019, for the purpose of enrolling workers in the IPPIS.
On Thursday, the finance minister said 55 per cent of ASUU members had registered for the IPPIS, saying, “the ones that have not are not getting their February salary.”
A source at the Enugu meeting of ASUU said the lecturers had been asked to go on strike if their salaries were stopped.
The Chairman of ASUU at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, Dr Christina Opata, in an interview with Prenkoloaded on Sunday, also said lecturers at the university were waiting for directives from the leadership of ASUU at the national level.
