…As Polytechnics teachers threaten to join strike
President Muhammadu Buhari declared on Thursday that only Federal workers that have been captured by the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) platform would continue to receive salaries.
The President stated this when he presented the 2021 budget of N13.08trillion to the joint session of the National Assembly in Abuja.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) embarked on strike over IPPIS and conditions of the universities earlier this year.
The union also vowed never to key into the IPPIS platform as demanded by the government.
To compound the situation, the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) also threatened on Thursday to join the strike.
The ASUU claimed that it has developed an alternative salary platform for university workers in the country.
But President Buhari insisted that all Federal workers must enroll in the IPPIS platform, saying the directive was designed to check fraud including payment of unauthorized allowances and salaries to non-existent personnel.
He also directed all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to ensure that they obtain necessary approvals before embarking on fresh recruitment.
The president warned that any breach of the directive would be sanctioned.
Buhari said the capital allocation for Ministry of Education has been increased by 65 percent, to improve the education of Nigerian children.
He revealed that funds have been earmarked for the provision of scholarships to Nigerian students at home and abroad.
President Buhari said: “We have provided funds for the upgrade of security and other infrastructure facilities in our Unity Colleges nationwide.
“To improve access to education, we have made provision for the establishment of five new Federal Science and Technical Colleges.
“We have also provided for the payment of allowances to 5,000 teachers under the Federal Teachers Scheme.”
But regardless of Buhari’s hard stance on payment modalities, the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) on Thursday threatened to embark on strike over the IPPIS matter.
With the latest threat by the union to embark on industrial action over IPPIS, ASUP has become the fourth trade union in the nation’s higher institutions currently at loggerheads with the Federal government over the platform conceived by the government to check fraud in the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been on a prolonged strike over the matter while the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Polytechnics (SSANIP) had also threatened to embark on strike over the government’s insistence on IPPIS.
The ASUP President, Anderson Ezeobe, who disclosed this to journalists in Abuja, said the 15-day ultimatum given to the federal government by the union remained valid.
He added that the union National Executive Council has directed various chapters to hold congresses with a view to taking drastic decisions on the way forward on the matter.
Ezeobe accused the government of insincerity, noting that it has failed to address the union’s grievances.
He said: “We can’t be giving an ultimatum and be repeating an ultimatum. We decided to go back on our congress to take a referendum because we have to educate our congress.
“The trade union is an epitome of democracy, so we are taking the matter to our congress to say, this is what has happened and the same way, we will explain to our chairmen, and they’ll take the matter back to congress and then our congress will decide on the direction to take.
“We understand that the pandemic has altered a lot of dynamics and so with the feedback we get from our members, we can come back and say, we are shutting down or giving a particular date. So we are waiting for directives that will come from our congress.”