ASUU Reveals How FG Pays Lecturers, Considers Strike

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has expressed dissatisfaction with the Federal Government’s persistence in using the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) for disbursing lecturers’ salaries, despite earlier promises to exempt tertiary institutions from the platform.

ASUU’s National President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, highlighted this grievance in a recent interview with Punch, noting that salaries for February were still processed through IPPIS, contrary to the government’s announcement in December 2023.

Naija News that the government declared that universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education would no longer be part of IPPIS, a system introduced in 2006 to centralize payroll management for government entities.

However, this move to include educational institutions had been met with strong opposition from ASUU, culminating in prolonged strikes in 2020 and 2021 due to various discrepancies and irregularities attributed to IPPIS.

Further exacerbating the union’s frustrations, Prof. Osodeke lamented that none of ASUU’s demands had been met, including the renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement, payment of Earned Academic Allowance, and the adjustment of tertiary institution workers’ salaries by 35 percent, retroactive to January 2023. Additionally, the government’s commitment to settling four months of the seven and a half months’ salaries withheld during the 2022 national strike remains unfulfilled.

Speaking on whether ASUU would embark on a strike to agitate their demands, Osodeke said, “Our member will decide, that is the reason we have been going on strike, even for salary review, yet, nothing has been done. Our February salary was paid with IPPIS, so nothing has been done or implemented. The government should do the needful and implement all the agreements they had with us.”

Osodeke also said that ASUU would soon make known its decision through a press release.