The Buhari Media Organization (BMO) has advised the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to avoid any action that could truncate smooth academic exercise nationwide just to protest President Muhammadu Buhari’s insistence on full implementation of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
The group said ASUU should not allow itself to be seen as saboteurs of a scheme that is bound to weed out ghost workers and improve the efficiency of payroll administration in public universities.
In a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, BMO said ASUU’s plan for a showdown over IPPIS could easily be interpreted as corruption fighting back.
“This is a scheme that has since 2017 saved the country over N230bn that could have gone into private pockets through fictitious payment of salaries and pensions, according to the office of the Accountant General of the Federation(AGF).
“And since President Buhari issued a directive that all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) drawing salaries and personnel costs from the Consolidated Revenue Fund be enrolled in the IPPIS, even the Police and the Armed Forces have signed up.
“But surprisingly, a group that is seen as a collection of intellectuals is at the forefront of the opposition to its full implementation, on the ground that it will erode the autonomy of the University system and the peculiarities of their earned allowances.
“Nigerians are however aware that President Muhammadu Buhari had in his budget speech at a joint sitting of the National Assembly on October 8 made it clear that any individual or group not enrolled under the scheme by October will lose their salaries.
‘So, can one say that ASUU is threatening a showdown in order to blackmail the government to sustain a corruption-riddled system that has over the years cost the country several billions of naira.
‘This is not a good development and we wonder what the University lecturers are really up to with what can easily be interpreted as a blatant endorsement of corruption.”
BMO further accused ASUU of mobilising its members for a strike even when records show that the Federal Government had agreed to take the peculiarities of the University system into consideration.
“We invite Nigerians to note that sometimes in July this year, government officials led by the Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, held a meeting with all university-based unions, including ASUU, in the boardroom of the National Universities Commission (NUC) on the workings of IPPIS.
“This was a follow-up to an earlier meeting in June with Vice Chancellors, Registrars and Bursars of all Federal Universities on the need to comply with the Presidential directives on the policy.
“An NUC record of the meeting with the unions shows that the Accountant-General was emphatic that the fears of the University community on the policy had been taken into consideration. He was quoted to have specifically said that although their concerns were genuine, the scheme was flexible enough to accommodate peculiarities of payments such as sabbatical leave, part-time programmes, staffing of new programmes, visitations, payment of outsourced services and earned allowances, among others.
“We also know for a fact that the AGF told the unions that the centralized payroll would be prepared by individual universities and that the human resources element would be taken care of by them.
“So why would only ASUU, out of all the unions, then claim that the autonomy of Universities is bound to be eroded? We also noticed that the lecturers recently raised a laughable argument on the constitutionality of IPPIS!”
The Buhari group urged ASUU to avoid a situation where it would be seen as a group that is averse to accountability in the university system, especially as the country stands a chance of saving more money once workers in public universities are captured in the cost saving scheme.
