War between the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU and the Muhammadu Buhari led Federal government seem to have no end as the government side mounts a ‘no-work, no-pay’ campaign.
ASUU while brushing off the effect of the policy said it appears the Federal Government is confused about how the university system works.
The union maintained that it is not bothered by the decision to invoke the ‘no-work, no-pay’ policy by the government.
The union was reacting to the statement by the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, that the withheld salaries of the lecturers would not be paid to serve as a deterrent to any worker planning to go on strike in the future on Thursday.
The union, which spoke through the Lagos Zonal Chairman, Adelaja Odukoya, said the claim that the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS, developed by the union to replace the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, IPPIS, did not pass integrity test, was far from the truth.
Odukoya, a member of the National Executive Council of ASUU, said: “If they have not paid us for six months and we did not die, we cannot die now.
“But they must be told that they are going to pay us our salaries, that is sure. The job of a lecturer involves teaching, research and community development and if we are not in class now, we are doing those other things.
“As for the IPPIS, why are they contradicting themselves on this issue. They themselves said and agreed that UTAS, when it was subjected to integrity test, performed much better than their IPPIS.
“It is the fraud being perpetrated through the IPPIS that is making those benefiting from it to go on sticking to it.
“They are saying that we had no reason to go on strike, if there was no reason, why are they proposing a new salary structure?
“They have set up a lot of committees with nothing to show for it. In May 2021, they set up a committee to work on our demands, nothing came out of it till we started strike in February this year.
“When we started strike, they gave another committee three months to do some things, yet nothing concrete came out.
“They are ignorant of how things work in the university system,”
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