Editorial
President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive, on April 21, that salaries of university lecturers seized over their refusal to enrol on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) be paid immediately must have come to many Nigerians as a surprise.
Indeed, the issue would have dominated the news space but for the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that is ravaging the world.
A statement issued last week by Emmanuel Nzomiwu, media aide to the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said “The President also directed the Hon. Minister of Finance, Budget and Planning, and the Accountant-General of the Federation to effect the payment urgently by all means to cushion the effects of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on lecturers and members of their family.” He added that “the payment was immediate and without condition.”
Vice-Chancellors were consequently directed to revalidate the Bank Verification Numbers (BVNs) of the lecturers and forward same to the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation for payment.
This is still something to cheer despite the fact that the government did not release further details on what led to the volte face.
The Federal Government and the lecturers’ union, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have been at loggerheads over sundry issues, including some agreements reached between both parties but which were not honoured by the government.
But the matter got to a head when the government decided to capture the lecturers in its Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
The lecturers said they would not enroll on that platform which the government insisted was for all its public servants and strictly for personnel payroll. ASUU on its part rejected the proposal, saying IPPIS did not take into cognizance the peculiar operations of the university system.
Read Also: IPPIS and ASUU’s intransigence
Both parties stuck to their guns, with the matter polarizing the university lecturers and consequently giving birth to a splinter union tagged the Congress of University Academics (CONUA).
The matter dragged back and forth until an interim agreement was reached between both parties on March 19, to integrate the lecturers’ proposal of the University Transparency and Acountability Solution (UTAS) into the IPPIS.
This was the situation until March 23 when ASUU began an indefinite strike due to what its national president, Biotin Ogunyemi, referred to as the use of force to make them enroll on IPPIS.
Incidentally, it was the same day that the National Universities Commission (NUC) closed down universities nationwide for a month, due to COVID-19.
Gratifying as the new development is, we still have to know the full implications. Does it mean the Federal Government has dumped IPPIS for the universities? Or is it an olive branch to bring the lecturers back to the negotiation table?
Whatever it is, we commend the Federal Government for towing what seems the reconciliatory path. We hope the lecturers would reciprocate the gesture by realizing that in industrial dispute, it is win some, lose some.
Without doubt, some of the lecturers’ grievances are germane but they have to find better ways of articulating them. Strike cannot be the option all the time because of its negative effects on the quality of the universities’ products.
We urge both parties to seize the momentum and resume talks aimed at resolving the grievances in the usual spirit of give-and take in industrial disputes.
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