University lecturers under the umbrella of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), have embarked on an indefinite strike over the insistence of the Federal Government that its members must be enrolled in the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
Last year, the Federal Government gave a directive that all its employees should be enrolled in the IPPIS by December 31, or their salaries would be withheld.
The directive did not go down well with ASUU members and they never failed to make it known to their employers, federal or state government.
Few days to the December 31, deadline, over 70 per cent of ASUU members were said to have secretly enrolled in the platform, while some others, especially their leaders, refused to join. All efforts to persuade them failed; rather they embarked on two weeks warning strike.
ASUU President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, told journalists in Abuja, yesterday, that the decision to embark on an indefinite strike was a tough one but the National Executive Council (NEC) had to endorse it following the expiration of two weeks warning strike earlier embarked upon by its members.
He maintained that periodic academic disruption in public universities was because of insincerity of government, particularly in honouring agreements signed with the union in years past.
He said: “It was difficult for NEC to take some painful decisions at its last meeting in Abuja, on Monday. Our wish was that government would have satisfactorily addressed issues that gave rise to the warning strike which ended on Monday, but that was unsuccessful.
“Nigerian government has chosen to use hunger as a weapon of war against its academics and we are not going to sit and watch. Action and reaction, as they say, are equal but opposite.
“So, based on the review of reports from ASUU leadership’s engagement with government, NEC concluded that government had failed to satisfactorily address the outstanding issues raised in the FGN/ASUU 2019 Memorandum of Action (MoA) and ignored the objections of ASUU against IPPIS.
“We will strongly reject any use of force to enrol our members on the IPPIS platform which was ‘fraudulently’ imposed on Nigerians by the World Bank with a huge amount of loan facility.”
“However, available records at Federal Ministry of Education indicated that cumulatively in last 20 years, university lecturers under the umbrella of ASUU have lost four years of academic work to industrial action with their salaries and other entitlements paid in full.
“In 2009, ASUU members shut down public universities for three months to compel government to attend to their needs as listed in their request sheet. At the end of the strike, in October 2009, ASUU and other labour unions in the university system signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Federal Government to call off the industrial action, with implementation timeline for the reached agreements.
“On 1 July, 2013, ASUU embarked on another strike. This time, for five months and 15 days. The strike was called off on 16 December, 2013. ASUU said the reason for its actions was lack of sincerity and commitment on the part of government to religiously implement the 2009 agreement.
“In 2017, Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, inaugurated a 16-member Federal Government re-negotiation team to interface with all university-based labour unions, notably, ASUU, NASU, SSANU, NAAT, as regards the content of the 2009 agreement it reached with the labour unions.
“The team was chaired by Dr Wale Babalakin, whom the government adjudged the most competent to lead its re-negotiation team, having done a similar job in 2009 when the negotiation began.
“ASUU President, Prof Biodun Ogunyemi-led the team of university based-labour unions.”