IPPIS: Makurdi varsity ASUU threatens to down tool

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) at the Federal University of Agriculture in Makurdi (FUAM) on Friday resolved to down tools if the Federal Government fails to pay their monthly entitlements on account of Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

ASUU Chairman, FUAM chapter, Dr. Ameh Ejembi, handed the threat in an interview with newsmen shortly after the union’s meeting held at the Science Lecture Theatre of the university.

“If the Federal Government stop our salaries because of IPPIS, we will down tools the following minute because the principle is that if there is no pay, there won’t be work. We will not continue with work if nothing is paid to us for what we have already done,” he said.

Ejembi noted that lecturers enrolled on IPPIS is a violation of the autonomy of universities and a contradiction of the superiority of the Governing Councils in the control and management of university funds, employment, discipline and promotion of staff.

Also, Comrade Alex Odiyi, a resource person at the national secretariat of ASUU, who met with the union at FUAM so as to get them prepared in response to any action of government with respect to its decision not to pay on account of refusal to enrol in IPPIS, said that the national secretariat of the union has decided to invoke no pay no action.

Odiyi said in rejecting the Federal Government’s IPPIS, ASUU has presented a “workable alternative,” adding that the university system has a way of running its things.

“Our alternative is fool proof and will protect the autonomy of the university. It is called Universities Transparency and Accountability Solution. While it ensures accountability in the university, it will also do same for government so that government will know how much it is spending and check the excesses,” he emphasised.