ASUU threatens prolonged strike over IPPIS

From Bisi Oladele, Ibadan

The nation’s ivory tower faces another prolonged strike by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the union threatened on Thursday.

ASUU at a zonal conference in Ibadan described the Minister of Finance and the Accountant-General of the Federation implementing the Integrated Personnel Payroll System (IPPIS) as ‘high priests of corruption.’

It lashed out at the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Sonny Echonu, as the latest Federal Government appointed liar on IPPIS, challenging him to tell Nigerians the percentage of lecturers in what ASUU described as fake statistics of enrollees on the IPPIS.

The union threatened that its ongoing two-week warning strike could snowball into a prolonged one, should the government fail to address its concerns on unimplemented agreements.

Addressing a joint conference in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, the Ibadan Zonal Chapter of ASUU comprising the University of Ibadan (UI), Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), Kwara State University (KWASU) and Osun State University (UNIOSUN), the Zonal Coordinator, Prof. Ade Adejumo, said the union has been vindicated with underpayment, overpayment, none deduction of the third party deductions, outright omissions, among many other anomalies which characterised the February salary paid to those who enrolled on the IPPIS platform.

Prof. Adejumo, who was flanked by Prof. Ayo Akinwole (UI), Prof. Moyosore Ajao (UNILORIN), Dr. Biodun Olaniran (LAUTECH), Dr. Femi Abanikannda (UNIOSUN) and Dr. Dauda Adesola (KWASU), expressed worry that despite the regrets being expressed by those who enlisted on IPPIS and other shortcomings and sharp practices, the Accountant- General of the Federation and the Finance Minister are insisting on going ahead with the platform.

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He said: “Currently, the outcry emanating from university workers over the payment of February salary has vindicated ASUU’s position on the evil platform of IPPIS as an unworkable platform. To say the least, IPPIS is a haven for corruption, rather than assisting in curbing it.

The attention of our union is drawn to the latest gibberish from the odious stable of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Mr. Sonny Echono.

“Echono should be truthful to himself and the nation, rather than playing politics with fake statistics. Of the over 70 per cent of university workers that he claims to have already been captured on IPPIS, what is the percentage of academics in his figure? The so-called balance of 30 per cent, what is the percentage of academics? In what way has the government responded to the plethora of sharp practices and irregularities that have been trailing the IPPIS implementation? How many university administrations have been prosecuted or even indicted for staff padding? Why have ASUU’s demands for visitation panels to the universities over the years been treated with such flippancy by the government that this high priest of IPPIS serves? On ASUU’s composition of its negotiations team, Echono’s parable of the carpenter and the nail falls flat on its belly. If the woes of the country have grown from bad to worse since the ‘Ali must go’ saga, to our current nightmarish experience, if the deficit of good governance and trust continue to be our abiding fate, if our civil service continues to be populated by cancerous (un)civil servants in the mould of this Echono, ASUU will not shy away from looking for bigger and stronger nails to drive those that run (ruin?) our country to the path of responsibility. That is the historical pact of our union with this nation.”