The leadership of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has asked both Federal and State Governments to immediately pay all the arrears of the withheld salaries of its members to pave for further discussion on the outstanding issues, that led to indefinite strike declared on March 23rd 2020.
He insisted that the Union would not suspend its ongoing strike until the federal government honours its 2019 agreements with the union.
Ogunyemi also lamented that five months’ salaries of members of Union in University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) and the Michael Opera University of Agriculture were still being withheld by the Accountant-General of the Federation allegedly on account of non-registration on IPPIS, and warned that ASUU would not be ready for further discussion on calling off of the industrial action, if the withheld salaries were not paid to the members, saying thousands of other academics across the universities are suffering the same fate.
ASUU had embarked on an indefinite strike in March 2020 over an attempt to force the lecturers on IPPIS platform and failure of the government to meet other demands of ASUU.
In the same vein, ASUU unveiled its most touted Universities Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), saying the software is now ready for integrity tests as required by the federal government that approved it in principle.
UTAS was developed by university lecturers as an alternative platform to the government’s Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), which the union had rejected.
ASUU President, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, said that UTAS was ready for integrity tests at a news conference in Abuja.
Ogunyemi stated that UTAS software was presented to the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu and other senior management of the Federal Ministry of Education, including Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Abubakar Rasheed, for government to subject the software to integrity tests.
