ASUU holds second meeting with FG over warning strike

Opeyemi Adelere

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Tuesday met the Federal Government in Abuja over the strike embarked upon by the union. The meeting was the second since the union started its warning strike last week Monday.

Recall that last Thursday, the ministry of labour and the union had the first meeting, which was adjourned after FG proposed the merger of the contentious Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) salary.

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The first meeting reached a consensus that ASUU should present the proposal to Congress before the scheduled date of the second meeting.

In the course of the second meeting with the FG, ASUU president, Prof Abiodun Ogunyemi, expressed his dissatisfaction with the way the government took IPPIS as the major issue in the union’s demands.

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He said the union was also protesting poor funding, the proliferation of state universities and non-implementation of previous agreements. “Another issue to correct is that we never said university bursars are to generate the budget for the instructions. ASUU is here with a report from members,” the ASUU president said.

A senior member of ASUU, who also attended yesterday’s meeting, said the Federal Government had not paid their salaries, whereas, people, who are enrolled on IPPIS have been paid.
“This is a warning strike but if it is not resolved, we will proceed to indefinite strike. The workers cannot be asked to go back to work without being paid,” he said.