The Federal Government has agreed to release N30bn earned academic allowance to the university lecturers. This is part of the outcome of the meeting yesterday. It was gathered that the money will be paid in tranches between May 2021 and February 2022.
The federal government also promised to spend N20bn on the revitalisation of the education sector as part of concessions meant to end the seven-month strike declared by the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
The government team was led by Ngige, his minister of state, Festus Keyamo (SAN), and others, while the ASUU delegation was led by its President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi.
The meeting also agreed that if UTAS passed all the integrity test, which involve the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), it would be adopted for the payment of the University staff. Meanwhile, the meeting could not agree on how payment would be done for ASUU members during the transitional period of UTAS tests.
It said that the government side again appealed to ASUU to enrol on IPPIS platform in view of the Presidential directive that all Federal Government employees should be paid via IPPIS. It added that they can thereafter be migrated to UTAS whenever certified digitally efficient and effective with accompanying security coverage. The ASUU maintained that given ASUU’s invention of UTAS, it should be exempted from IPPIS in the transition period.
At the end of the meeting, ASUU agreed to take the offer to its members for consideration. The meeting is to reconvene on Oct. 21 for ASUU to report back on the decision of her National Executive Council (NEC), in order to facilitate the calling off of their strike.
