From Scholastica Hir, Makurdi
The Nsukka Zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU-Nsukka Zone), has raised an alarm over the emergence of a “new IPPIS” few months after the directive of the Federal Executive Council, (FEC), to remove the Universities from the payment platform.
The Zonal Coordinator, Raphael Amokaha, raised the alarm in Makurdi, on Tuesday, February 20, 2024, during a press conference to draw the attention of Nigerians on the travails of the public universities and their workers.
Amokaha who recalled that the union had earlier rejected the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, (IPPIS), said this new one too is not acceptable saying it has been the opinion of the union that IPPIS negates the university’s laws and autonomy as it also serves as a conduit to syphon public funds.
According to him, the union after deploying its financial and human resources in designing a homegrown payment software; University Transparency Accountability Solutions, (UTAS), which he said accommodated all the peculiarities of the Universities, offered same to the government who rejected it.
He however recalled that after their resistance to IPPIS was vindicated by revelations made since the arrest of the former accountant general of the federation, they were delighted when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, through the FEC, directed the immediate removal of Universities from IPPIS.
“Regrettably, this directive is yet to be complied with then the disturbing news of new IPPIS. We do not understand what new IPPIS means. Whatever contraption someone has sprung up with, whether new or not, it is still IPPIS and stands rejected.”
The union while expressing concern that somebody somewhere could flagrantly disregard FEC directives said “It can be inferred from observations that the people that are benefiting from the IPPIS are not ready to let go of the federal universities for their pecuniary benefits hence the transformation from IPPIS to new IPPIS.”
The union called on the federal government to immediately investigate and fish out those behind the recalcitrance and call them to order, “The President’s orders are being disobeyed by who we don’t know. He needs to find out and call them to order,” Amokaha said.
The Zonal Coordinator who read from his text titled “Let the Lecturers Breath” spoke on several issues including the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement the government entered with the union, the December 2020 Memorandum of Action, (MOA), between the government and the union that their Earned Academic Allowance, (EAA) will be mainstreamed in 2022, withheld salaries of members, funding of the universities, proliferation of universities across the country, among others.
He lamented that the government, after entering into various agreements, has totally neglected the Universities as though they do not exist.
He further stated that the offer by the government to pay four months out of the eight months being owed to their members after the protracted strike in 2022 was unacceptable.
Amokaha who disclosed that some of their members have started receiving alerts of payment of March and April 2022 salaries said “Our members did not do a fraction of the work on returning from strike, all the work was done, and we expect that all their salaries should be paid.”
The union zonal coordinator noted that President Tinubu who had declared his intentions to end strike in the Universities, also said it was their responsibility to let the poor breath and not suffocate them.
He urged the president to extend such gestures to their members, allow them to breath and not suffocate them saying the draft renegotiated 2009 agreement may need to be reviewed before signing to ensure that what is being agreed upon now will be commensurate to the hyperinflation ravaging the country.
He reiterated that Government must ensure complete disengagement of the universities from the IPPIS, old or new, ensure adequate funding of the universities to break away from the vicious cycle of fluctuations on the nation’s economic fortunes.
The Nsukka Zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU-Nsukka Zone), comprises of seven branches including Benue State University, Makurdi, (ASUU -BSU), Enugu State University of Technology, Enugu, (ASUU-ESUT), Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, (ASUU-FUAM), Federal University, Lokoja, (ASUU-FULokoja), Federal University, Wukari, (ASUU- Wukari), Kogi State University, Anyigba, (ASUU-KSU), and University of Nigeria, Nsukka, (ASUU-UNN).