ABUJA  – Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Monday said that his members called off the eight months old strike based on trust between the union and leadership of the House of Representatives.

Osodeke also said that the acceptance of the Integrated Personnel Payment Informa­tion System (IPPIS) as opposed to their demand for University Transparency and Account­ability Solution (UTAS) as the payment platform was done on temporary basis, basically an interim measure, pending when a formal agreement would be reached with the Federal Government.

The ASUU president spoke at a meeting with the Speaker of the House of Represen­tatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, which was a follow up on the agreements reached at the pre­vious meetings held before the suspension of the strike.

It would be recalled that the tripartite meetings had resolved to extract some of the peculiarities of the universities in the UTAS and merge same with the IPPIS, the basis upon which the latest meeting by the speaker was called.

According to the ASUU president, “We didn’t reach full understanding before we called off the strike because we did that on trust. We have not real­ly signed any documents that address all the issues but since we are talking about this now, I think, it will be a small thing we could sit down between you and us as we did the last time and reach conclusively. We can sign because the strike we called off, our members also did it on trust and it’s because we didn’t have anything we presented to them. It was just on trust and the way we had meetings with the speaker, it was that way we’re able to con­vince them. I think we should also look at other issues and reach a very meaningful con­clusion on them.

“What we agreed on the is­sue of UTAS and IPPIS is a tem­porary measure because for a country like Nigeria, if we are really patriotic and we love this country; if there is a problem in payment, you challenge your university to develop a pro­gramme for you. So, this idea of others will bring their own is not true. We were challenged to produce it. We feel sad that we had spent our money, time and resources to produce what we were challenged to produce by the minister of labour on be­half of the government in 2020. If they have a problem with the system, within two hours they will resolve it but for my col­league who is in Sokoto, if he has a problem, he will have to come here. Accountant-general will not go there.”

However, in a swift reaction, the Speaker, Gbajabiamila, who had earlier said that the meeting was called to follow up on the issues discussed, faulted the claims of the ASUU presi­dent, saying that an agreement was reached which was not on temporary basis.

He also dismissed some feel­ings in some quarters that the series of meetings held did not achieve any useful results.

“We are here as an institu­tion to make sure that whatever that is agreed is implemented as best as possible if not to the letter. The main issue for dis­cussion today which was one of the major areas of conflict was the issue of payment plat­form whether or not it has to deal with the issue of UTAS as opposed to IPPIS.

“If you recollect, on that is­sue, we did agree that we will marry both whilst IPPIS will remain the platform. That gov­ernment will bring in the aspect and the areas under UTAS that are specific to the universities and assimilate those areas into IPPIS. I believe that was what was agreed by both sides when we had last two meetings. So, we want to make sure that that box is ticked and is not just an agree­ment on paper or said for the purposes of moving towards the cancellation of the strike.

“The accountant-general, who is going to midwife that merger is here. So, I think the best way to move forward is for the accountant-general to tell us and ASUU will also respond on how to go about the merger.

“Let me address one or two things that you said, first of all, like you said you called off the strike based on trust and I agree with you but if you are now asking for written agree­ment, then where is the place of trust? Those two cannot re­ally go together. If you trusted me and the institution, asking for a signed agreement like a contract basically negates that trust. But be that as it may, I signed on behalf of the institu­tion, I signed what appears to be a written agreement to you and I also sent a copy to the pres­ident, so there is something in writing. And you sent yours as well. We modified it and signed it. If it was not based on trust, for you to even appreciate that yes, I wouldn’t have even called this meeting to follow up the ex­ecution on what we agreed. This is a follow up to make sure that what we agreed on this issue is executed and that is where the trust issue comes in.

“If you say that you had issues in the past on the issue of IPPIS, it’s those issues that we are trying to address. In the past, UTAS was not brought into IPPIS. It was IPPIS or noth­ing. So, what happened is what we are trying to address. This is the first time I am hearing the word temporary or interim. That was never used. We have records of the meetings. That was not the agreement. The agreement was not that it was a stopgap temporary measure. The agreement was that to ad­dress the issue, UTAS will be brought into IPPIS so that we can move.

“On the issues which re­quire funding, I gave you my word that we will find one way or the other in the budget and accommodate that in the bud­get and we did that even prior to the presentation of the bud­get. We know the leg work that we had with the Ministry of Finance and the Budget Office to make sure almost N500 bil­lion was included in the budget for ASUU. I have written to the ministry on the issue of panel report, the white paper. We are taking these one by one.

“Those who said we might have achieved nothing, I am really surprised. N500 billion, the white paper, UTAS being accommodated and somebody sits down on the TV and say we have achieved nothing? A lot has been achieved and ultimately you have been com­mitted enough to go back to the classroom. We will continue to work on all the areas we have agreed on based on trust like you rightly said. We need to talk about the timeline”, Gba­jabiamila said.

On his part, the acting ac­countant-general of the feder­ation, Silvia Okoliaboh, gave a timelineof threemonthswithin which to sit down with ASUU committee and resolve all the peculiarities of the university in the expected merger of UTAS into IPPIS, even as he said that a formal letter to that effect will be sent today (Tuesday).