ASUU Failed to Give Mandatory Notice
The Federal Government has declared the current two-week warning strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities illegal. The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, made this declaration in Abuja after the Federal Executive Council meeting on Wednesday.
ASUU was accused of not following laid down procedures before embarking on the industrial action as it failed to give the government the “mandatory notice” required before a union could proceed on strike
Ngige noted that having failed to follow the laid down procedures, it amounted to corruption for the university teachers to go on strike. The minister said, “I am in shock. The strike is illegal because they did not give us the mandatory notice." He added that withdrawing services and still asking to be paid amounted to corruption.
The Minister, however, added that he had contacted the leadership of ASUU and invited it to a meeting on Thursday (today) to discuss the issues raised by the union. He however warned that the government would not succumb to threats by ASUU, arguing that “no employee should dictate to an employer.”
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ASUU, while declaring the warning strike, had stated that the government had yet to address issues raised in agreements it reached with the union from 2009 to 2019, including poor funding of the university system. The union also drew attention to the immediate issue which is the union’s opposition to the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System of the government, which is designed to capture all Federal Government workers under one payment system.
ASUU has repeatedly resisted the IPPIS on the grounds that it would not suit the university system. In place of the IPPIS, the union proposed the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, which it said would address the peculiar case of the universities.
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When asked for the government’s final stance on the IPPIS, Ngige replied that after the union visited the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), earlier in the year, the government stood its ground on the IPPIS. However, he stated that both sides agreed that the IPPIS and ASUU’s UTAS could be harmonised after all the grey areas had been sorted out.