Non-Academic Staff Unions of Nigeria Universities (NASU) has said that the union will not join other academic and non-academic staff unions of Nigeria universities over Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information (IPPIS) agitation.
Speaking at an emergency meeting of Universities Trade Group Council of NASU and Inter-University Centers in Ilorin on Wednesday, the general secretary of the union, Prince Peters Adeyemi, said that demands of the union for its members are peculiar.
“The issue is very clear. When government initially introduced the IPPIS those of us in the tertiary institutions including universities said that we could not join because we had some peculiarities that were not captured on the template which was used for the core people in the civil service. And those peculiarities include our retirement age, some of the agreement we had with the federal government in 2009, the issue of our Earned Allowances and others. We resisted that over a period of time.
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“But you are well aware that the government has curbed corruption in the system using the IPPIS platform. So, we insisted that for us to embrace that platform government had to capture our peculiarities in the template since we are also willing to give support to the anti-corruption crusade of the government. And we do not see any problem if anything that affects our members in terms of salaries, entitlements and other conditions of service are captured in that template.
“For us also, if they say this thing will check corruption, why not embrace it?
“In the template designed for the universities, some of these peculiarities if not all, have been captured that is why we resolved to embrace the IPPIS. That is why those non-teaching unions of NASU, SSANU and NAATS agreed that our union can enrol in the IPPIS.
“Of course, there is this issue of university autonomy and the rest of it. Here in our country, university autonomy cannot be said to be total because it is the government that is funding the universities. To a large extent, the man who funds the system will have some level of control,” he said.
The general secretary, who said that the union upholds discipline and constitutional rights of every member, added that leadership would not condone illegality.                                                Â
The union at the meeting also recommended expulsion of the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA) branch to the NEC for alleged anti-union activities.
However, the chairman of the FUTA branch, Comrade Adebayo Aladerotoun, described the expulsion as unconstitutional, calling for a review of the union constitution