NLC Holds Nationwide Protest Over University Unions Strike

Lecturers in government-owned universities – affiliated with ASUU – embarked on a nationwide strike on February 14 over the adoption of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) of the government as the payment system in the university sector.

They had also decried the poor funding of universities, non-payment of salaries and allowances of some of their colleagues, as well as the inability of the government to pay earned academic allowance to lecturers, among other issues.

Both unions recently rejected the report of the Professor Nimi Briggs-led renegotiation committee set up by the Federal Government to end all strikes across the nation’s universities, saying they would not be bound by its recommendations.

They said they never concluded negotiations with the committee before it submitted its recommendations to the government for implementation, stressing that such an action was a betrayal.

Reacting to the disturbing situation in the university sector, the NLC faulted the Federal Government over its handling of the industrial actions that have grounded activities in public institutions.

It also called on the government to pay the salaries of the striking workers, which it said had since “been frozen on the premise of the so-called ‘no work-no pay’ policy”.