Listen to this. Our academia is the source of Nigeria’s rot. So unfortunate. Especially these guys from the SW. They better change their ways. We are tired of nonsense in Nigeria. If we are targeting politicians let us target politicians. But when the academia adds their own stealing, we will not take it!
IPPIS IS A SCAM – ASUU
Mr Ogunyemi who addressed the Senate President described IPPIS as a scam and threat to national security.
He also said the payment system violates university autonomy.
He noted that contrary to the law expressly backing the Governing Councils of each Federal University to exercise full control over the finances of the universities, IPPIS “lacks constitutional backing; neither is it supported by any Act of the National Assembly.”
“The IPPIS is not a home-grown initiative, rather it is a prescription of the World Bank, which ultimate consequence is to create anarchy and therefore, retard the growth and development of Nigeria,” he said.
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Complaints
One of the many complaints of the union is that the IPPIS does not capture the peculiarities of the structure of the establishment of the university system, which is flexible and pragmatic.
“The system does not, for example, capture the remuneration of staff on sabbatical, external examiners, external assessors, and Earned Academic Allowances. It does not address the movement of staff as in the case of visiting, adjunct, part-time, consultancy service, which academics offer across universities in Nigeria,” he said.
He also said IPPIS as currently implemented requires staff to travel to Abuja for physical biometric data capture if by any chance such staff could not be available during the time the IPPIS personnel visited for the exercise.
“The implementation of IPPlS in Nigerian Universities will further localise their operations and perspectives, thus negatively impacting their ranking in the global academic community,” he added.
The union leader said the IPPIS cannot address specific processes of promotion of academics.
“For example, the promotion exercise in the Professional Cadre, which is subject to external assessment that may last for several months; in such cases, when the outcome of the exercise is returned positive, the beneficiary is paid arrears from the beginning of the assessment process. But this cannot be captured by IPPIS.
“The IPPIS does not recognise the 70 years retirement age of academics in the professorial cadre, and 65 years for those in the non-professorial cadre, as against the 60 years in the civil service,” Mr Ogunyemi stated.
He said should the IPPIS be forced on the universities, the result will be widespread dissatisfaction among scholars.
Foreseeable consequences
The ASUU president said one of the biggest challenges of IPPIS is that it poses great threat to ‘national security.’
The system, he said, is not strategic for a sovereign nation in a world system where almost all countries are vulnerable to sabotage by international cybercriminals and states.
He said it will constitute an impediment in the way of the ability of the universities to provide staff for new programmes as well as replace staff.
He said this is because new staff members cannot be paid salaries until they are enrolled in the IPPIS database, which will take months to actualise.
“Technically speaking, IPPlS is a scam. It creates more problems than it resolves to buttress. The IPPIS system only recognises staff members that are on permanent and pensionable appointments.
“The IPPIS restricts the ability of universities to employ much-needed staff at short notice. Such staff, when recruited, may not be paid until cleared by the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), thus creating avenues of corruption. The dynamism associated with staff recruitment will become cumbersome with the introduction of IPPIS,” he noted.
The union leader also said the IPPIS is designed in such a way that outsourced services such as cleaning and security, casual workers, NYSC, etc. cannot be captured.
He said it does not allow for deductions from staff salaries arising from legally sanctioned union and cooperative society activities. “This will directly infringe on the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right of staff to association,” he explained.
