The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the federal government appear to be heading for another confrontation over an acceptable salary payment platform and the constitution of new governing councils for universities.
Last year, the Nigerian government announced the exemption of federal-owned tertiary institutions, including universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, and monotechnics, from using the Integrated Personnel Payment System (IPPIS) for staff salaries and allowances.
This announcement was made by the Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, while addressing State House correspondents following a weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting. The directive was to take immediate effect.
Mamman stated that the FEC had observed that vice-chancellors of universities did not need to abandon their work to visit Abuja to process the salaries of their personnel, as was the current practice.
However, findings have shown that five months after President Bola Tinubu’s administration made the declaration, the new policy has yet to be implemented. Furthermore, the Federal Government is reportedly planning to pay the salaries of lecturers in tertiary institutions through the Government Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMIS).
As an alternative to IPPIS, ASUU had suggested the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) for their payment instead. This development implies that the government has ditched UTAS, proposed by the lecturers.
A lecturer at the University of Abuja disclosed to Daily Post that nothing has changed in terms of the payment platform through which they receive salaries. According to him, last month’s salary was paid via IPPIS.
He noted, “Yes, we are still being paid with IPPIS. They just added ‘new’ to it. That’s, if you get the alert, you will see ‘new IPPIS’. I think it’s the same platform. It’s just a matter of nomenclature. They just added ‘new’ to the IPPIS, but it is still the same.”
He added, “It’s also part of the agitation. I read a report today that they are going back to GIFMIS. But it is just a normal report that they do write just like they said last year that they were withdrawing lecturers’ salary payment from IPPIS. Even the National Assembly said something to that effect, but it has never happened till now.”
In a message to the same correspondent, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) ASUU branch chairperson, Comrade Nobert Oyibo Eze, confirmed that the federal government was yet to implement the announcement it made about ASUU’s exemption from IPPIS. “No, it hasn’t,” Eze said, indicating that no changes have been effected. When pressed for more details, Eze told the correspondent to reach him at a later time.
Recall that the deployment of IPPIS by the government was one of the contentious issues that led to a prolonged industrial strike between ASUU and the federal government, lasting about eight months in 2022.
ASUU had then accused the government of tampering with the autonomy enjoyed by the universities, alleging that the office of the Head of Service of the Federation was taking over the work of the university governing councils and vice-chancellors.
The university workers also complained of irregularities in the payment of their members’ emoluments, with some lecturers accusing the government of short changing them.
Similarly, the University of Jos branch of ASUU on Tuesday called for the immediate removal of its members from IPPIS as directed by the FEC since 2023. The union also reiterated its call for the Federal Government to implement the nine demands presented to it.
During a peaceful protest in Jos, the state capital, the UNIJOS branch of the Union presented their letter of demands to the Vice-Chancellor of the University. Chairperson of ASUU-UNIJOS branch, Dr. Jurbe Molwus, decried the government’s inability to fulfill the agreements reached with the union over the years.
ASUU demanded the immediate release of the Revitalisation Fund and the immediate payment of salaries of members excluded or omitted from the payroll of the IPPIS.
“We demand the immediate removal of ASUU from IPPIS as directed by the Federal Executive Council since October 2023. We call for the reinstatement of the Governing Councils of public universities that were illegally removed by the Bola Tinubu-led government, in particular those whose tenure has not elapsed; they are free to constitute those who have exhausted their tenure,” the union demanded.
