ASUU strike: Conflict between other staff union may prolong resumption

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By Ayo Arowojolu

Crisis is far from being over at the nation’s Ivory Towers especially the public-owned universities as hopes for an early resumption of students back to campuses have been dashed.

As at Monday, hopes had heightened that a quick resolution of the over seven months strike by lecturers, which has crippled the universities, was in sight, following intervention by the Senate led by Senator Ahmad Lawan.

The Academic Staff Union of Nigeria Universities (ASUU) had tabled before the Senators their own proposed salary payment platform which they suggested to replace the much-criticised Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System(IPPIS) which is presently imposed by the Federal Government for all public staff.

In principle, the government was already contemplating to soften its stance and allow the ASUU proposed Universities Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) to sail through.

As at Monday, there were indications that the government may indeed cave in to the demand of ASUU, number one of which is their vehement rejection of IPPIS, in order to allow normalcy to return to campuses and students resumption of academic activities.

But, swiftly on Tuesday, polarisation and divided interests among the different staff unions across all universities have resurfaced and it looks likely to dim such hopes of return to normalcy in the ivory towers.

Even if government should accede to the ASUU demands, the other categories of workers in their several tenths of thousands, who do not belong to the academic fold, have warned that the Federal Government cannot use the payment platform designed by ASUU to pay them.

By the same token, the non-teaching workers under the aegis of Joint Action Committee comprising the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities(SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities and Associated institutions(NASU), has also rejected the new platform introduced by the Federal Government, that is, IPPIS.

Rather, SSANU and NASU are demanding that the government should revert to the former platform being used to pay them, the Government Integrated Finance Management Information System (GIFMIS) or adopt their own platform, designed newly by their unions.

Under the Joint Action of NASU and SSANU, the non-teaching staff have also designed their own platform to be launched very soon, to handle the payment of their salaries and other related entitlements.

Making this known in Abuja on Tuesday was the General Secretary of NASU, Comrade Peters Adeyemi.

Comrade Adeyemi said: “we have designed our own platform, we are ready to also present it. Don’t forget that ASUU also said they have a platform they have designed. So, if government is ready, it’s now the right of the unions to prepare their platforms. We have our own, they can’t use ASUU platform to pay us.”

He pointed out that the platform was ready and would be presented to the public very soon, adding that they have agreed to do a formal launching of the platform.

It would be recalled that while ASUU had from the onset rejected the IPPIS platform as designed by the government because of the perceived problems and crisis that would associate with the system, NASU and SSANU went ahead to key into it after series of consultations and meetings with the government, believing that the perceived lapses would be addressed.

Adeyemi disclosed that they have now realised that IPPIS is replete with series of problems when in February the IPPIS started the payment of salaries of workers in the universities and later in the universities centers.

However, he disclosed:“To our surprise, most of the things we agreed upon, the government did not comply. Government went back on its words. when this thing started we found out that some of our members were not paid their salaries at all, some were paid what is completely below what they were expected to pay”

The NASU boss explained that on the issue of 2009 NASU/SSANU and Federal Government agreements, which includes the payment of a number of allowances including earned allowance, all the agreements were jettisoned.

He argued that deductions, such as the National Housing Fund, which the workers were not paying before, IPPIS decided to deduct it without their knowledge and without following the due process

He affirmed that the position of the unions was that the government should return payment of the salaries of their members to what it used to be before the IPPIS platform commenced; adding, “we were on Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) and “GIFMIS” is another platform for payment.

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