The Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) officials have continued to stand their ground over enrolment into the Integrated Personal Payroll Information System (IPPIS), saying the Federal Government cannot intimidate its members to enrol into the system they have already rejected with stoppage of salaries.
The Union also accused some Vice-chancellors of threatening its members to enrol into the system of IPPIS which the union has made its position clear. The Federal Government had on Wednesday revealed that the ASUU was complying with the directive of enrolling into the IPPIS in most universities contrary to the union position.
The coordinator of the IPPIS in the office of the Accountant General, Olusegun Olufehinti disclosed salaries are personal and each member of ASUU carry his unique appointment letter, therefore, everyone that wants to be paid must get enrolled.
However, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, the ASUU National President while granting an interview with the punch accused some Vice Chancellors of being overzealous through meddling into ASUU negotiations by muscling its member to get enrolled.
According to Prof. Ogunyemi wherether there will be salaries or no salaries when they get to the bridge they will find a common ground, saying they have grow through the system with the struggle as similar actions were meted against them in the past, saying when anybody think he can intimidate ASUU it should not be with salaries.
The ASUU National President added that ASUU and its team would soon complete work on an alternative platform which the Senate was expecting the union to come up with and demonstrate before the house. He revealed by the time the union put forward its model, the fears of the government would be allayed and the university system preserved.
Ogunyemi opined that the Federal Government should have waited to test its (the union’s) model of ensuring financial transparency rather than forcing its members to register for the IPPIS that started on Monday and would end on December 7.