The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has appeared set to suspend its about 183 days strike soon following the resolution of issues around the Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS), and the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), with the Federal Government.
Adoption of UTAS instead of IPPIS as a payment platform for the Universities is one of the contending issues that has led to the lingering industrial action by the public universities’ lecturers in the country.
ASUU President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, gave hint about the possible suspension of the strike on Monday during an interview with Channels Television.
The leadership of the Union are also expected to meet with the Minister of Education on Tuesday in a make or mar meeting to further look at some of the grey areas.
The ASUU executive members have been in a marathon meeting ahead of the meeting with the Minister scheduled to hold at the Ministry of Education, Federal Secretariat, Abuja.
Recall that ASUU has been on strike since February 14 over the failure of the Federal Government to implement the agreement reached with the Union.
Speaking on Monday, the ASUU President said the Federal Government invited the union for a meeting on Tuesday, saying the Union would suspend the strike if the Federal Government agrees to its demands at today’s meeting.
“We have not had any serious communication though they have invited us for a meeting on one issue, tomorrow (referring to Tuesday), which is the issue of renegotiation,” he said.
“You know that there are seven issues why we are on strike. They are inviting for discussion on the issue of renegotiation, tomorrow, which is the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement.
“The issues of IPPIS and UTAS have been put to rest because the test has been done and it has been agreed with the chief of staff, UTAS will be implemented to cover the university.
“Two, if this government is serious, this strike will not last more than two weeks. If you recall we were supposed to go on strike in November, but we didn’t start it because NIREC came in and intervened. We conceded to them.
‘’They met with the president, he set up a committee headed by the chief of staff that should resolve this quickly, the world saw it in the press, they did nothing. The president set up the Munzali committee, we met them, nothing, they didn’t come back.
“They set up the Nimi Briggs committee, it’s now more than three months, two months we finished negotiating with them, they didn’t come back. The president directed the Ministry of Education to finish within two weeks, two weeks passed, and they didn’t come back.
“If we go into that meeting tomorrow and the government says what we have negotiated, we are willing to sign, the strike will be called off.”