ASUU ACCUSES FG OF MANIPULATION AND DECEPTION
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has accused the Federal Government of manipulation and deception as both parties fail to reach a consensus over the nine-month strike action by the lecturers.
Chairman of the union, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, made this known on Monday, November 9, on a Channels TV program, Sunrise Daily.
Ogunyemi accused the Government of playing a game of deception, saying it has failed to show commitment to resolving the crisis.
He said; “Government should stop this arm-twisting and manipulation, going back to universities to ask them to go and enroll in IPPIS so that they will go and migrate to UTAS; people see it as a game of deception and we cannot trust them.
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Ogunyemi, who blamed the Government for the inability of the striking lecturers to return to class since March 2020, stressed that University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) is the way to go for the union, and must replace the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
He noted that the Federal Government has insisted there is a transition period within which ASUU members would first be captured in the IPPIS before migrating to UTAS.
“What we need is a commitment; there is nothing like transition and what we are saying, in essence, is that government should just go ahead and pay what government has withheld – the salaries of our members; people have not been paid for eight or nine months on account of not registering on IPPIS,” the ASUU president said.
He admonished the Federal Government to show more commitment to the ongoing negotiations in order to ensure lecturers and students return to the classroom.
Ogunyemi revealed that if not for the union’s effort, the fate of public universities in Nigeria would have been like that of primary and secondary schools.
“Each time people talk about this problem has been there for long, they don’t also appreciate the solution we have brought to the system to keep the system going.
“But for ASUU’s intervention, we would no longer have public universities today. Do we still have public primary schools? Do we still have public secondary schools? That is what will happen to public universities,” Professor Ogunyemi said.
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