FG Readies To Embrace ASUU Salaries Issue To End Up Strike

The federal government of Nigeria has said she is ready to embrace the request of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on the issue of salaries in a bid to ending the strike action.

This was rolled out on Thursday by the Accountant General of the Federation, Sylvia Okolieaboh, in a meeting between the union and the federal government at the House of Representatives.

Okolieaboh stressed that the government is concerned over the ripple effect of allowing ASUU to have a separate payment platform from others.

“If there are peculiarities in the university salaries system, what we need to do is to sit down with ASUU and identify them and address them in IPPIS. We are willing to accept.”

He urged ASUU to accept the Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system (IPPIS) with the promise of improving the payment platform to fit the needs of the lecturers.

It would be recalled that the Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila had last week called for an extended meeting of all stakeholders in the education sector to resolve the over seven months strike.

It would be noted that this was the third meeting brokered by the House of Representatives, like many others, which did not yield any agreement.

Others at the meeting included the head of service, Folashade Esan, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, the President of ASUU, Emmanuel Osodeke.

In his closing remarks, Mr Gbajabiamila said will compile all recommendations and submit them to President Muhammadu Buhari as a single report.

He stated that “We are appealing to you, the Judiciary has spoken, the Executive has spoken, the Legislature is about to speak together with the Executive; everybody cannot be wrong and only one person is right. For me I’m happy with the solution on UTAS, no victor, no vanquished, everybody is being carried along.

“For the sake of emphasis, the House is pleading with you, let’s put all interest aside and look at the interest of our children.”