The Senate on Monday urged the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to shelve its proposed strike over the enrollment of its members into the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

Senate President Ahmad Lawan made the appeal at a meeting the Senate leadership held with ASUU members.

Lawan noted that as an arm of government, it is the duty of the National Assembly to ensure that disagreements with government are resolved in the interest of the country and its institutions.

The Senate President said ASUU was required to ensure that universities remained open.

“We are all in this together and we believe that the Nigerian Education sector, especially the tertiary, needs serious support. We know that you have made some sacrifices and that you have put in your best with the little given to you.

“The legislature is always prepared to take necessary steps to ensure that the tertiary institutions remain open and functional.

“We are part of government and I believe that an issue like this should be resolved. My worry has always been why government will sign agreements that it knows are difficult and sometimes impossible to implement.

“I believe that we should be looking at all the issues and suggestions that have been raised.

“I’m happy that you have made your point and I’m also happy that the Federal Ministry of Finance is thinking of addressing the issues as well. I will like to know how they intend to do it. I’m meeting with the Minister of Finance to tell us what exactly is to be done because we do not want any strike.

“As for funding, the truth is we can only do our best at this stage. We have serious financial challenges in terms of budgetary allocations. This one should be known to everyone. But it is also our duty as the National Assembly to ensure that any revenue due to the Federal Government of Nigeria is captured and remitted properly. So, when we have sufficient revenues, we can fund our educational sector better.

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“We will work hard on this but I want to assure you that in the legislature, you have partners. We will work with you to ensure that we resolve these issues.

“We’ll start with you today and then we’ll invite the government’s side to let them tell us what they are doing.”

ASUU President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, stressed that nobody should see ASUU’s opposition to IPPIS as an endorsement of corruption in the Nigerian university system.

The union leader said rather, it was government’s inaction or failure to implement the outcomes of visitation exercises that encouraged corruption.

He said: “In the recent past, successive governments had set up visitation panels whose recommendations were never put to effective use. A clear example is the University of Abuja where a special visitation panel was set up in 2012.

“ASUU took a special interest in the matter because our union thought it would send the appropriate warning signals to other universities that were not properly managed. We monitored the processing of the report to the point of the White Paper. Unfortunately, to the chagrin of our union, nothing came out of the exercise.”

The union also said the Federal Government is eroding the powers and superiority of university governing councils.

ASUU said only such bodies have the powers to hire and fire university workers.

It renewed its threat to declare nationwide strike, if the government failed to remit the salaries of its members at the end of October.

The Owerri Zone of the union, which stated this yesterday, also asked the Federal Government to stop treating its members as civil servants.

It said the strike would reinforce its members’ rejection of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) allegedly being forced on them by the government.

The Owerri Zone of ASUU comprises the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike; Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO); Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka; Imo State University (IMSU) and Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu University (COOU), Uli.

Addressing reporters in Owerri, the Imo State capital, the union’s coordinator for Owerri Zone, Uzor Onyebinama, accused the Federal Government of eroding the powers and superiority of university governing councils.

He said only these have the powers to hire and fire.

The union leader described the IPPIS as a new and strange regime of finance about to be forced on public universities in Nigeria.

“The contention of ASUU is that IPPIS violates university autonomy and violates Federal Government/ASUU agreements. It also does not address the peculiarities inherent in the nature and structure of our universities. Specifically, IPPIS violates and erodes university autonomy inherent in the extant provisions of Section 2AA of the Universities Miscellaneous Provision (Amendment) Act 2003.

“Academic activities (teaching, research and community service) in universities have specific milestones with timelines. Consequently, universities are structured to be independent and free from civil service bureaucracy. As a result, the university establishment is not only flexible and dynamic but also pragmatic with the primary objective of rapid response to critical exigencies. IPPIS negates this,” Onyebinama said.

Also, ASUU’s Nsukka zone described the IPPIS as illegal and unconstitutional.

Addressing reporters at the end of its meeting at the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi (FUAM) in Benue State, the union said the IPPIS cannot stand because it negates the Act establishing Nigerians universities.

In a communique read by its Zonal Coordinator, Dr. Igbana Ajir, ASUU stressed that the IPPIS was silent on critical issues affecting the university system.