By Appolos Christian
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) says it has rejected the submission of Bank Verification Number(BVN) as condition for payment of Febuary and March withheld salaries of lectures in the Federal Universities.
Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, ASUU President said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja.
The Federal Government on Tuesday in a statement has it has approved the payment of February and March withheld salaries of lecturers in universities who were yet to registered on the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS).
Recall that ASUU had embarked on an indefinite strike on March 23, over failure of government to address outstanding issues raised in the FGN-ASUU 2019 Memorandum of Action and also ignored the objections of ASUU against IPPIS.
ASUU had rejected the application of force on its members to join the IPPIS irrespective of its evidence shown to offer a more credible alternative to IPPIS.
According to Ogunyemi, we have been told that that Federal Government have approved the payment of withheld salaries of our members for the month of February and March.
“We appreciate Mr President for doing that. However, withholding February and and March salaries was unnecessary in the first place.
“In the second place, the issue is the condition attached to it, which does not go down well with our members which is the supply of their BVN.
“Our members are being paid in the past without asking for their BVN.
“So, we have reasons to suspect that this is an indirect way to get us back to IPPIS which our members rejected.
“So, these are things we are going to clarify with government whenever we are called for a meeting, ” he said.(NAN)
