Latest
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Friday, 21st August formally sent a letter to the federal government, requesting for a date for the reopening of negotiations, which were abandoned in February due to the disagreement over the implementation of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
ASUU President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, who revealed the latest move by the lecturers at the weekend, said ASUU is seeking for an opportunity to reopen negotiations stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic to also enable the union to to demonstrate the efficacy of UTAS.
He said: “We expect that federal government will facilitate the conducting of integrity test on UTAS. We have written to the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, telling him that we are ready for integrity test if it will be facilitated by government. We sent the letter on Friday.
Yes, we have met the Minister of Education but the negotiation proper has not started. So, we are waiting for government to call us and we expect that the Minister of Labour is going to facilitate the process and also facilitate the resumption of talks, which were suspended due to our disagreement over IPPIS,” he said.
Ogunyemi said the union is eager to resume engagement with government which was earlier initiated by the Minister of Labour and Employment in April but could not hold due to concerns over the COVID-19.
He explained that the union did not accept the earlier invitation because the minister suggested a virtual meeting, “which we felt cannot be able to address the issues properly.”
“We said that physical meeting is better because we need to consult amongst ourselves during the talks. Since COVID-19 is being tackled, opportunity will soon come for us to have physical meeting and that is what is happening now – at least, we have had the first physical meeting with the Minister of Education and now the door is open for further discussion,” he added.
