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The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Calabar Zone, has stated that again that the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) introduced by the federal government is not in tandem with the operations of the university system and should be discarded for the overall interest of tertiary education in Nigeria.
The Coordinator of ASUU-Calabar Zone, Aniekan Brown, who stated this while addressing journalists after its emergency zonal meeting held at the University of Calabar on Wednesday, said there are glaring cases of negligence and near the decimation of public university education, but vowed that the union ASUU is committed to resisting for the life and preservation of the quality of public university education in Nigeria.
Present at the meeting were Victor U. Nkemdirim (Chairperson, ABSU), Inyang Udosen (Chairperson, AKSU), Patrick Ineji (Chairperson, CRUTECH), Ikechuku Igwenyi (Chairperson, EBSU), Ogugua Egwu (Chairperson, FUNAI), Edor. J. Edor (Chairperson, UNICAL), Happiness Uduk (Chairperson, UNIUYO) and Nsing Ogar (IPZC and Convener, State & Private Universities Commission, ASUU)
Brown maintained that though, ASUU’s struggles are misunderstood, there is no going back on the outstanding issues in 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement including the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) versus University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) option with the federal government unpatriotic attempt to discredit the indigenously-developed software, revitalization of public universities, proliferation and mis-governance of state universities and earned academic and allowances,
Other outstanding issues that needs t be resolved also include non-payment of outstanding salaries to some members (some for over 25 months), release of government’s white paper on reports of the visitation panels sent to universities and the conclusion to the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement renegotiation which was due in 2012.
According to him, “the IPPIS as a payment system is uncongenial with the modus operandi of the university system given the peculiarities of universities; and generally untoward to the welfare of ASUU members.” He explained that IPPIS is a cesspool of corruption as enunciated by the Auditor-General of the Federation some time ago.
Decrying the pitiable situation of state universities, he said some state Governors and visitors to state universities have abdicated their role of funding such universities and rather see universities as revenue generating outfits and their fiefdoms.
He added that such universities are now appendages of their Government Houses independent of extant laws, traditions, and conventions even as subventions are given just as they are run without Governing Councils and the processes of leadership evolution and development abused as the case Abia and Ebonyi State Universities were salaries are delayed and fractionalised.
He further explained that the ASUU developed the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) following a challenge to the FGN to evolve a credible alternative, but expressed regret that after all its efforts to prove federal government wrong about the capacity of ASUU the later still changed the gear and opted to antagonise the software by raising artificial obstacles.
The Union accused NITDA of working with foreign computer firms to sabotage the efforts of Nigerians by accepting a foreign-developed software with its attendant inadequacies, shortcomings, and pains visited on Nigerians rather than encouraging homegrown software developers, adding “the operators of NITDA and the supervising Ministry have failed woefully on their mandate and encouraging neo-colonialism.”
