The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) on Thursday threatened to embark on strike over the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
With the latest threat by the union to embark on industrial action over IPPIS, ASUP has become the fourth trade union in the nation’s higher institutions currently at loggerheads with the Federal Government over the platform conceived by the government to check fraud in the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had been on a prolonged strike over the matter while the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Polytechnics (SSANIP) had also threatened to embark on strike over the government’s insistence on IPPIS.
The ASUP President, Anderson Ezeobe, who disclosed this to journalists in Abuja, said the 15-day ultimatum given to the federal government by the union remained valid.
He added that the union National Executive Council has directed various chapters to hold congresses with a view to taking drastic decisions on the way forward on the matter.
Ezeobe accused the government of insincerity, noting that it has failed to address the union’s grievances.
He said: “We can’t be giving an ultimatum and be repeating an ultimatum. We decided to go back on our congress to take a referendum because we have to educate our congress.
“The trade union is an epitome of democracy, so we are taking the matter to our congress to say, this is what has happened and the same way, we will explain to our chairmen, and they’ll take the matter back to congress and then our congress will decide on the direction to take.
“We understand that the pandemic has altered a lot of dynamics and so with the feedback we get from our members, we can come back and say, we are shutting down or giving a particular date. So we are waiting for directives that will come from our congress.”
