The National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Prof Biodun Ogunyemi, speaks on the two-week warning strike and the contentious issues, including the Integrated Payroll and Pers...
The National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Prof Biodun Ogunyemi, speaks on the two-week warning strike and the contentious issues, including the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, in this interview withYour union has commenced a two-week warning strike over issues that involve the 2009, 2013 and 2017 Memorandums of Understanding. Can you break this down?
As the Federal Government is doing its own, state governments are also busy using universities as constituency projects. And that is why every state governor is aspiring to have a university in their own constituency – this is the same way senators are also clamouring to have one tertiary institution or the other in their areas.
Then we also told the government about visitation. You know that the government is quick to talk about corruption in the universities, that vice-chancellors or professors are corrupt. But the system has a mechanism to address all of those. By the establishment act, every public university is expected to be visited at least once in every five years. But the last time the Federal Government visited its own universities was in 2011.
Still on IPPIS, the Minister of Finance said out of 137,016 academic and non-academic staff members of universities, 96,090 had been enrolled in the IPPIS. Don’t you think that some members of the union are working against your stand? So, whether people are going against our directive or not, we just believe that what they are saying is not correct. It is not correct because let them tell us the status of those that have been captured. Are they confirmed staff members of universities? So if anybody is on temporary appointment, you cannot take that as a university staff member.
Now, you are coming up with IPPIS that will require a Vice-Chancellor to send a memo to the Head of Service or to the Accountant-General of the Federation before they can employ in the universities. It is never done. Universities by nature should organise a flexible payroll system because of the peculiarities of their programmes and procedures.
You can track them. In Bayero University, Kano State, today, they have a policy that you cannot be an adjunct lecturer in more than two universities and if you want to do that, you must seek the express permission of the university and you cannot move beyond 200km radius of the university. So, this thing is regulated. The issue here is about regulation.
How many of our professors or VCs have we reported to the government that they are not working? But the government did not take any action. And now, some newspapers are turning around to say that ASUU is shielding corrupt professors or corrupt VCs. It is not correct. It is red herring.Lagos Assembly crisis: Aggrieved lawmakers link feud with Pension Bill for Speaker
Rather than meeting us, she has been threatening us: “Yes, no IPPIS, no pay; lecturers who do not register on IPPIS will not be paid. Already, we have captured 80, 90 per cent of lecturers.” What if the Federal Government decides that it will go ahead and employ people to fill lecturers’ positions, do you think the majority of workers who have already subscribed to IPPIS will join your fight?
We have a mechanism within which we address grievances. I mean, let me give you an example. You have heard of the story of the University of Ilorin. What does ASUU want from this warning strike, since the union has said that IPPIS is just a distraction? Are you on strike over the 2019 MoA or over IPPIS?
So every memorandum we have signed with the government – whether 2013, 2017 or 2019 – all emanate from the 2009 initial agreement because all issues we are still tracking have their roots in the initial agreement. Those who are criticising our position on IPPIS should have a rethink. They should look at all the facts. We are saying that IPPIS is not even a major problem of Nigerian universities. In China, when they ran into the problem of coronavirus, they drew out people they had invested in their education.
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