According to ASUU, the software for UTAS was unveiled and demonstrated to the Minister of Education and senior management staff of the Ministry of Education, including the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Prof. Abdulrasheed Abubakar, on Monday.

The national President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, made this known during a press conference held at the Gwagwalada campus of the University of Abuja, attended by almost all its national officers.

But Ogunyemi maintained that it would not suspend its ongoing strike until the Federal Government honours its 2019 agreements.

“It is our sincere hope that the government would not renege on its promise because the benefits of UTAS to the university system (both public and private) cannot be found in any other software in Nigeria today. Now that the union is close to meeting the government’s demand on an alternative to IPPIS, it is our sincere hope that the substantive issues in the ongoing strike action would be given the desired attention,” he added.

ASUU president also lamented that five months’ salaries of their members at the University of Maiduguri and the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike are still withheld by the Accountant-General of the Federation on account of non-registration on IPPIS.

“Thousands of other academics across the Universities are suffering the same fate. So, while we counsel that government at both the federal and state levels must meet the Taskforce specified guidelines for reopening of educational institutions, we insist that all the arrears of the withheld salaries of our members in federal and state Universities must be paid immediately to pave for further discussion on the outstanding issues in the Memorandum of Action of February 7 2019,” he added.

The Chairman of CACOL, Mr. Debo Adeniran, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos.

NAN reports that the Federal Government and ASUU have been at loggerheads over IPPIS enrollment following a recent directive by President Muhammadu Buhari that all federal workers must be captured on the platform by December or have their salaries stopped.

Prof.Biodun Ogunyemi, the President of ASUU, had told lecturers to disregard the directive, saying registering on the IPPIS platform would undermine university autonomy.

He had argued that IPPIS would not take care of certain peculiarities of the university system such as payment of research grants and hosting of foreign scholars by universities.

Reacting, Adeniran advised ASUU to comply with the directive as IPPIS was designed to ensure efficient payment of salaries of all federal workers and check corruption in the system.

He said that since the objective of IPPIS was to fight corruption by fishing out of ghost workers, CACOL expected ASUU to key into the system.

“The university is the citadel of excellence, the centre of innovativeness and solutions to challenges, So, we urge ASUU to embrace the innovation of IPPIS as it was designed to check corruption.

“Whatever issues ASUU is having with IPPIS can be amicably discussed with the FG and I am sure the IPPIS platform can be re-programmed in such a way to address those issues. Outright opposition is not justifiable.

“And since lecturers are experts in the various endeavours, ASUU can even come up with an idea to make the platform accommodate all the issues they are talking about.

“We are urging ASUU to join the Federal Government in the fight against ghost workers and corruption as it is for the benefit of the country,” he said.

On how the anti-corruption fight of the Buhari administration has fared, Adeniran said the campaign was yielding the desired results.

He said many corrupt people, including highly placed officials, had either been arrested or convicted, describing the fight as a huge success.

Adeniran said that Nigerians would appreciate Buhari’s anti-corruption fight more after his exit from office in 2023.

He said the fight against corruption should be a collective responsibility and urged citizens to support the fight for more successes.