By Olawale Asake
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has called on the Federal Government to honour its demand of 2020 ASUU-FGN Memorandum of Action, MoA, which stressed the need to review the Nigerian Universities Commission, NUC Act to make the commission more potent in addressing the excessive establishment of universities in Nigeria.
Chairman of the Union, University of Ibadan Branch, Professor Ayoola Akinwole made this known during the Town Hall meeting of Stakeholders in Education and parents as well as the students of the institution held at the New ASUU Secretariat, University of Ibadan, Oyo State.
Professor Akinwole who said, the matter of proliferation of public universities had been one of the issues that led to series of strike between 2020 and 2022, maintained that federal and state governments continued to create universities without preparation for their funding.
The ASUU chairman also added that the federal government should fulfill its promise to remove ASUU members from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, and implement the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS, which he said had passed all the credibility tests by the appropriate agency of government.
“We are, however, worried that the grip of IPPIS on the universities is far from being eased, more than seven months after the government publicly announced exiting universities and other tertiary institutions from the discredited payment platform, salaries of workers in federal universities and other tertiary institutions are still being paid with the discredited IPPIS platform”, he lamented.
Professor Akinwole also mentioned other demands to include, the logical conclusion of the renegotiation of 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, reinstatement of governing councils in federal and state universities, release of the three and half months of the withheld salaries and release of third-party deductions.
Others are payment of Earned Academic Allowances, EAA, implementation of the reports of the Visitation Panels, release of unpaid salaries of staff on sabbatical due to IPPIS, and funding for the revitalisation of Public Universities based on the FGN-ASUU MoU of 2012, 2013 and the MoA of 2017.
Professor Akinwole urged Nigerians to hold the federal government responsible should the union declare fresh industrial action.
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