ASUU Strike Enters 7th Month After Failed Meeting With FG

The Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union Universities have failed to reach an agreement even as the strike by the union enters its seventh month.

Giving an update on the lingering issue, the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, in an interview with PUNCH accused the union of muddling things up over the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System.

But in its response, the union said government wanted to turn Nigerians against university lecturers.

Recall that ASUU had on March 23 begun an indefinite strike over the Federal Government’s insistence on implementing the IPPIS, which the government said all its employees must adopt for their salaries to be paid.

Besides opposing the IPPIS, union also accused the Federal Government of not abiding by agreements both sides signed a few years ago.

Two weeks ago, there were indications that the strike would soon end as the Federal Government said that it might consider adopting the University Transparency Account System , which ASUU developed as an alternative to the IPPIS.

But the hope that students of public universities would soon resume dimmed on Sunday as the government and ASUU tackled each other on the payment system.

Berating ASUU, the Minister of State for Education, Nwajiuba, said, “We have a situation that is quite confusing because a lot of the issues are muddled up so you don’t know which one they (ASUU) want to address and which one they don’t want to address.”

He said government would not integrate ASUU’s payment system with the IPPIS until it is tested.

According to him, government told the union that ASUU’s payment system must tally with the IPPIS.