IPPIS: We won’t bow to pressure, ATBU ASUU declares

ABUBAKAR Tafawa-Balewa University, (ATBU), Bauchi chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has declared that its members will not succumb to pressure to be part of enrollment into the Integrated Personnel Payroll Scheme (IPPIS).

While making the Chapter’s position known after its congress, the Chapter Chairman of ASUU, Dr Adamu Babayo who spoke with Journalists in an interview said that during the meeting, members rejection of the scheme was unanimously reaffirmed.

He said: “I wish to tell you emphatically that today, we held the best congress ever in the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University. It was a seamless process which had no hindrance, no objection to our position”.

He added that: “Everybody in the congress agreed to the position of the union considering the fact that the issues of autonomy and the 2003 agreement before everyone in the campuses and members of our Union have consented that yes, we should go ahead and reject the biometric capture that was supposed to start today. Our position as a union is a total and comprehensive rejection of the Accountant General on registering our members.”

Adamu Babayo further stated that nobody has come to ATBU for any biometric capture of their members “not to even start talking of capturing our biometrics and there is no going back in whatever they do.”

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Asked if they will bow to pressure if the salaries of its members are stopped until they are enrolled into the IPPIS, he said that the government has stopped their salaries several times in the past but the issues were processed by the Union and solved.

According to him: “We are used to pressuring, our position is very clear as a union, we had the resolutions at NEC and we came back on the 24th October, at ATBU and took another resolution and we have reaffirmed that position that we are not succumbing to anybody from the office of the Accountant General of the Federation. We will process whatever they will come up with and we will match them word for word.”

He, however, denied the existence of a faction in the Union, pointing out that the masterminds of the said faction are on suspension in the union, just as he said that they are not registered.

On whether the Union is not myopic and selfish on the issues considering the fallen standard of education in the country, he said: “I won’t agree with you because ASUU has positioned itself properly in checkmating the system and looking at the state of affairs in Nigeria.

The ASUU Chairman added: “On several occasions, even as at January or February this year, our Union had a position with the government and stated clearly the state of education in this country. But the problem is that it is the federal government of Nigeria that sits on this position and refuse to make public the presentation to save Nigerian universities.”

Asked of what the union will do if it is pushed to the wall, he said: “We will process it. Right now, nobody has touched us but it is an attempt to touch us and properly when we process what is on the ground, we will come back to the community and tell them.”

He said the Union considers the actions of the Accountant General of the federation as diversionary because the union and the government have had several agreements which have not been implemented.