By Felix Khanoba
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) says the payment of February and March 2020 withheld salaries of its members by the Federal Government is not enough to end its ongoing strike in public universities across the country.
National President of the union, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, called on lecturers in federal universities to be prudent in their spending as the payment was not an indication that the disagreement with the government was over.
The ASUU boss’ position on the payment of the salaries, which were earlier withheld over the refusal of lecturers to enrol into the Federal Government’s Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), was made known in a series of tweets on the association’s twitter handle, @ASUUNGR, on Saturday.
He said: “Good evening comrades. A number of our colleagues have called or sent messages to make enquiries about payment of the withheld February and March 2020 salaries of our comrades in federal universities through the rejected IPPIS platform.
“It’s clear that what the government paid was rightfully earned by our members, not anything special or doing us a favour. Therefore, ASUU members have no apologies withdrawing from their accounts as appropriate.”
The president added in his message that members should be prepared for continued opposition to the deployment of the IPPIS for the payment of their salaries.
He also said the resolution of all outstanding issues in the 2019 Federal Government of Nigeria/ASUU memoranda of action will continue to be pursued to a logical conclusion.
“Comrades are strongly advised to be prudent as the struggle for the rejection of IPPIS and resolution of outstanding issues in the February 2019 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) is far from over. The struggle continues!” The union tweeted.
