ASUU Wants Nigerians’ Support Over Crisis With FG

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has appealed to Nigerians of goodwill to prevail on the Federal Government to honour its agreement with the union in order to forestall a major crisis in the nation’s university system. 

DAILY INDEPENDENT recalled that the union had on the 28th of October last year raised the alarm about the brewing crisis in the nation’s universities due to alleged unwillingness of the federal government to honour and to implement components of the Memorandum of Action (MoA) it entered into with her on 7th February last year. 

Comrade Uzo Onyebinama, Owerri Zonal coordinator of the union who briefed newsmen on Tuesday on the on-going warning strike of the union at the Union’s secretariat, Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO) listed the issues outstanding in 2019 MoA to include renegation of the 2009 FGN – ASUU Agreement outstanding since 2012; release of outstanding balances of the Revitalisation fund for universities and constitution of visitation panels to federal universities. 

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Others include payment of outstanding arrears of Earned Academic Allowances as well as the mainstreaming of the Earned Academic Allowance; the uncooperative attitude of the visitors to state universities towards the efforts to adequately fund existing state universities and halt the proliferation of state universities. 

The ASUU chief noted with regret that the brewing crisis in the universities is further compounded by what he described as “avoidable controversy over the enrolment of Academic staff into the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System” (IPPIS) which he said is pro-corruption. 

In addition to its manifest shortcomings in addressing the peculiarities of the nation’s university system coupled with its violation of the autonomy and localization of the universities, Onyebinama also contended that it does not border on transparency and accountability. 

The don who faulted the claims by the minister of Finance and National Planning, Hajia Zaina Shamsuna Ahmed that IPPIS had flushed out 70,000 ghost workers from the payroll of the federal government said that a performance audit (evaluation) of the IPPIS by the office of the Auditor General of the Federation (AUGF) indicated a myriad of shortcomings that make IPPIS amenable to manipulation at will by the system operators. 

Source: Independent