ASUU Stages Peaceful Protest in Bauchi, Demands Exception From IPPIS

By Idris Ayinde

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi state chapter, has staged a peaceful protest to press home its demands and urged the Federal Government to fulfill its promise to remove its members from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

Comrade Ibrahim Inuwa, the Chairman of the union made the call on Thursday, at the end of the peaceful protest.

He also urged the federal government to implement the re-negotiations of 2009 agreements reached with the national ASUU to prevent the resumption of the suspended industrial action.

The ASUU members who walked from their Secretariat in the Yelwa campus of the University to the main gate, called on President Bola Tinubu to ensure the signing and implementation of the Prof. Nimi Briggs Committee’s agreement on the renegotiation of salaries of academic staff of Federal Universities.

The members, through their Chairperson, expressed their grievances by carrying placards with different inscriptions, calling the attention of relevant authorities to their plights such as ‘Remove ASUU from IPPIS, Release our withheld salaries, Implement ASUU FG agreements, We are not Casual Workers’ among many others.

Inuwa, who stated that the non implementation of the agreement has the implications of denying Academics a wage that is consistent with the current economic reality, also lamented that for 15 years now, ASUU members have remained on the same salary system while all efforts for renegotiation have failed thereby making them to remain stagnant on the same spot.

“Following the federal government and ASUU in the 2009 agreement, it was provided that the agreement would be reviewed every 3 years. However, the Union has been without a renegotiated agreement for the past 15 years.

“Consequently, after so much effort and pressure on the government, a renegotiation committee was set-up under the Chairmanship of Wale Babalakin in 2017. This committee failed to ensure the conclusion of its assignment within the agreed time frame.

“Two other committees headed by Prof. Munzali Jibrin and Late Emeritus Prof. Nimi Briggs negotiated and produced draft agreements but the process was truncated at the point of finalizing the reviewed agreement and from 2021 till date, the document has remained in a draft form.

ASUU has over the years remained concerned over the need for successive governments to give the deserved attention to the development and provision of quality education to the Nigerian citizens.

“This position of the Union is consistent with section 18(1) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended. This section states that the government shall direct its policy towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities to the citizens at all levels.

“The provision of access to quality education not only basic education, but including tertiary education is a matter of national interest and patriotism.

“This is because no nation is able to develop to its full potential where its citizens are poorly educated and their access to education is limited and obstructed by the lackadaisical attitude of the political class,” he said.

He called on the federal government to, as a matter of urgency, attend to their demands so as not to resolve embarking on an industrial action which the union had been avoiding over the years.

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