Strike: ASUU Kicks Against IPPIS Modification, Defends UTAS

The government has urged the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to consider retaining the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) as the union's payment platform, a recommendation the union kicked against.

In the just-concluded marathon meetings between the House of Representatives and tertiary education stakeholders over the prolonged impasse on Thursday, 

The government in a third of the sequence of meetings persuaded ASUU to embrace the IPPIS as its payment platform, promising to amend the platform to include the peculiarities University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) seems to include.

Reacting, ASUU took its stand, insisting on an autonomous platform for university lecturers.

The union challenged the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to verify the 
failure of UTAS in the integrity test conducted on it. 

It stated that its recommendations would soon be presented to the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).

Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, during the meeting stated that the report of the stakeholders’ roundtable and the recommendations of the parliament would soon be ready.

In his closing remarks, Gbajabiamila appealed to ASUU to embrace whatever recommendation the House makes in good faith.

“I believe this would be, hopefully, the last meeting we are going to have on this matter because from here, the leadership of the House will put together our reports, our recommendations, and our thoughts and take them to Mr President.

“I am hoping that whatever we have done, ASUU will accept it in good faith—this is an independent arm of the government—and that the government will accept it in good faith as well so that our children can return to school, which is what this is all about,” he said. 

ASUU President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, however, faulted IPPIS for failing to meet the distinctions of the university system.