The leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities has directed its members nationwide to disregard a circular from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to enrol academic staff on the Integrated Payment and Personnel Information System from Monday.
ASUU on Sunday stated that the same Accountant-General of the Federation had challenged the union to develop a template that accommodates the peculiarities of academic staff and present same to him.
The union said the Federal Government needs to test its own model of ensuring financial transparency rather than forcing its members captured on the Integrated Personnel Payroll and Information System, which opened on Monday, a report by PUNCH said.
Prof Biodun Ogunyemi, ASUU National President, added that the enrollment of lecturers was like taking universities back to core civil service.
Ogunyemi insisted that its members will not take part in the registration for the IPPIS, adding that such steps by the Federal Government would undermine the autonomy of Nigerian universities.
He said, “We have proposed to the government that we have an alternative that will address all issues that the government had raised about universities.
“The government needs to test our own model rather than buying into a model that will take universities back to the core civil service.
“With IPPIS, before a Vice Chancellor can employ an academic worker, the VC will have to get permission from the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.
“Universities cannot be run within the framework of civil service bureaucracy.
“Universities are universal cities of knowledge creation and they can perform best when they are allowed to operate their system based on the laws establishing them.
“We signed a memorandum of action with government earlier this year and they promised that they will start visitation by March this year. Government didn’t do anything. This is November. When people say ASUU is encouraging corruption, it is cheap blackmail.
“We will destroy Nigerian universities with IPPIS if government should go ahead and force people to enroll.
“You can’t bring lecturers from all over the world and ask them to go and register in Abuja in the ministry. It is ridiculous. We have gone beyond that. They are taking us many decades back. It is sad.”
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