Mohammed Ahmed, Director of Communication at the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HOCSF), disclosed this in a statement released on Wednesday in Abuja.

The Federal Government initiated the IPPIS in 2007 to enhance transparency, accuracy, safety, and reliability in managing personnel records. It also aimed to curb unnecessary personnel cost overruns.

In September, the Federal Government delisted over 17,000 government employees from the IPPIS platform due to their failure to comply with a verification exercise that spanned over five years. An additional two-week grace period was granted to the unverified officers.

According to Ahmed, the Office of the HOCSF, responsible for maintaining official records and information on all public servants, was tasked with purging the payroll system of irregularities.

He explained that the implementation of IPPIS initially focused on the Payroll module rather than the Human Resource component, as part of the government’s efforts to combat ghost workers and eliminate cost leakages.

The Office of the HOCSF conducted a series of verification exercises, during which some civil servants could not be properly recorded.

In response to this, some non-compliant officers requested a final opportunity to update their records.

The portal was reopened from October 3 to 13 for these individuals to make necessary updates. They were also required to come to Abuja for physical verification, as the office had already allocated and spent its budgeted funds and couldn’t further deploy staff to states for the exercise.

However, the verification of records for all civil servants will conclude at the end of the ongoing exercise, and any officer whose record remains unverified will be removed from the government’s payroll at the end of the two-week exercise on Friday, October 27.

The union’s president, Dr Makolo Hassan, in a statement, following its National Executive Council on Thursday, said the union was warming up for a total shut down, NAN reports.

According to him, NASU is an arm of the Joint Health Sector Unions.

“For almost 10 years, the government has failed to honour the content of the agreement it freely entered into with the Joint Research and Allied Institutions Sector Unions as contained in the year 2010 JORAISU/FGN Agreement.

“The underlisted issues include payment of 12 months arrears of 53.37 per cent salary increase, peculiar allowances and earned allowances.

“Also, the retirement age of 65 years for Non-Research staff as obtainable in the universities, withdrawal of circular on non-skipping of Salary Grade Level 10, that is the National Industrial Court’s judgement delivered in favour of the trade unions.

“Others include the establishment of a central body to be known as National Research Institutes Commission, adequate funding of Research Institutes and release of conditions of service,” he said.

The union leader said the government had yet to address the issues in spite of several reminders, strikes and Memorandum of Understanding entered into with the government on the matter.

Hassan said: “We, therefore, use the opportunity of this meeting to request the government to act speedily, particularly on the issue of the 12 months arrears.

“Except some concrete steps are taken within the next 14 days, NASU members in all the research institutes in Nigeria will be compelled to commence strike to press home their demand in this regard,” he said.

The union leader also said that the government had not lived to its promise of a hitch-free migration on the IPPIS.

According to him, IPPIS has demonstrated a high level of incompetence and inefficiency.

He said that the union’s experience since it migrated to the platform had been a painful one.

“All efforts to get government and the office of the Accountant General of the Federation to redress the noticeable shortcomings has not yielded a positive result.

“The noticeable shortcomings include non-payment of salaries to some staff, underpayment of salaries, non-payment of approved allowances as contained in the year 2009 FGN/NASU Agreement as well as failure to pay check-off dues to the union as and when due.

“Others are nonpayment of promotion arrears, non-deduction of welfare scheme, high taxation, non-release of payslips to workers, delay in payment of salaries and non-release of schedule of payments made.

“In the face of these challenges and the lukewarm attitude of the government and IPPIS office toward redressing these shortcomings, NASU may have no choice than to embark, as soon as possible, on a full-blown strike in the universities and inter-universities centres.

“Also, in polytechnics and colleges of education, except something is done very urgently to positively remedy the situation,’’ Hassan said.

According to ASUU, the software for UTAS was unveiled and demonstrated to the Minister of Education and senior management staff of the Ministry of Education, including the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Prof. Abdulrasheed Abubakar, on Monday.

The national President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, made this known during a press conference held at the Gwagwalada campus of the University of Abuja, attended by almost all its national officers.

But Ogunyemi maintained that it would not suspend its ongoing strike until the Federal Government honours its 2019 agreements.

“It is our sincere hope that the government would not renege on its promise because the benefits of UTAS to the university system (both public and private) cannot be found in any other software in Nigeria today. Now that the union is close to meeting the government’s demand on an alternative to IPPIS, it is our sincere hope that the substantive issues in the ongoing strike action would be given the desired attention,” he added.

ASUU president also lamented that five months’ salaries of their members at the University of Maiduguri and the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike are still withheld by the Accountant-General of the Federation on account of non-registration on IPPIS.

“Thousands of other academics across the Universities are suffering the same fate. So, while we counsel that government at both the federal and state levels must meet the Taskforce specified guidelines for reopening of educational institutions, we insist that all the arrears of the withheld salaries of our members in federal and state Universities must be paid immediately to pave for further discussion on the outstanding issues in the Memorandum of Action of February 7 2019,” he added.

The Minister said this at the opening ceremony of a management retreat in Kano on Thursday March 5, saying that the objective of capturing lecturers on the IPPIS is to check corruption.

She said “Unfortunately most reforms that you undertake you come across resistance. We have had resistance from ASUU on the implementation of the IPPIS and I am happy to report that at least up to 55 percent of ASUU members are registered and the ones that have not are not getting their February salary. It is in eliminating ghost workers because you register on the IPPIS using biometrics and we are currently working with the office of the head of service to link up the IPPIS HR management module with the payroll itself. It will help us better maximise the efficiency of the system. I know that we have up to 70,000 ghost workers that have been identified in this process and we hope that we will come to a time when we will say that we have no ghost workers.”

The Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, in a letter dated Tuesday, January 21st and signed by the Director of IPPIS, Olufehinti Olusegun, directed the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning not to release funds for the payment of January salaries of academic staff of universities, polytechnics and colleges of education yet to enroll on the IPPIS platform. Read initial report here.

ASUU President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi said if such decision is not reviewed, lecturers in the university system would be left with no other choice than to down tools.

He said “We didn’t take part in that decision. What we were expecting them to do was to allow the ongoing discussion to run its full course. Now that we are reading about this in the media, it’s as if some elements in government are trying to sabotage the process. We came out of the meeting with Mr. President believing that they will give us room to explain how the UTAS will better address our peculiarities and autonomy than IPPIS. However, they have not allowed that to happen. We suspect it’s due to the activities of some individuals or groups that are trying to sabotage the process. If they push us to the point of taking our final decision about it, we too will tell them ‘no pay, no work’ because we have a resolution that is on ground already. The resolution we took long time ago, which we reactivated at our meeting in Minna last month. So, whichever way they want to go, ASUU will rise to the challenge.”

ASUU national president, Biodun Ogunyemi, declared this on Wednesday after a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting, held at the Federal University of Technology, Minna, saying that the union shall activate its standing resolution of “No pay, No Work’ if federal government makes any attempt to stop their salaries over Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

ASUU issued this threat through a series of posts on its verified official Twitter handle.

The post read: “Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has threatened to embark on a nationwide strike if the federal government makes any attempt to stop salaries of their members over Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

“ASUU national president, Biodun Ogunyemi, who declared this yesterday, after a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting, held at the Federal University of Technology, Minna from 7th-8th, December 2019, said the union shall activate its standing resolution of “No pay, No Work.”

“He noted that the union is shocked that the OAGF said IPPIS is meant to comply with global best practices when they cannot tell Nigerians or any other country where IPPIS is extended to the universities as one of the best practices.”

Insideojodu recalls that ASUU had rejected a Federal Government’s directive mandating workers at its universities and colleges of education to enroll in IPPIS before Dec. 7.

ASUU National President Prof Biodun Ogunyemi speaking on meeting with Lawan, said, ASUU and the senate agreed the union should complete its payroll model if it would not use the one designed by the Federal Government.

Ogunyemi in a series of posts on the ASUU official Twitter page insisting on resistance to IPPIS added that IPPIS would return universities to the military era.

The post read: “Despite the readiness of other unions such as the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) to key into the government payroll system, IPPIS officials from Abuja did not show up.

“ASUU and the Senate agreed that the union should complete its payroll model if it would not use the one designed by the Federal Government.

“We agreed that we should continue what we have done; the alternative is what we are working on. We showed them the alternative and, hopefully, they would see reasons and it would be accepted.

“IPPIS would return universities to the military era, which was characterized by the use of force. The University Miscellaneous Provisional Amendment Act of 2003(also called the Universities Autonomy Act No. 1, 2007) was enacted to liberate the universities from the bureaucracy of the civil service and to enable the council to exercise its powers and functions without undue external interference or influence.”

The University of Ibadan chapter of ASUU made the remark while condemning the alleged directive by the Federal Government that her officials would move to campuses to begin enrollment of university workers on the Integrated Personnel Payroll and Information System, IPPIS.

The Chairman of ASUU in UI, Professor Deji Omole said the union cannot be harassed or intimidated by Buhari’s government which has a penchant for breaking the law.

Daily Trust reported that Omole wondered why a government under democracy was afraid of negotiation and dialogue but prefers to use force.

Omole said: “The government pronouncements to forcefully enrol university workers is an act of violence against the university system. It is worrisome for a government under democratic dispensation to resort to force rather than dialogue. If not why is the government afraid of negotiations. We are not perturbed by the directive. A government claiming to be fighting corruption should not break the law.

“The university Autonomy Act is very clear on university administrators. There is no greater corruption than those breaking the law of the land. Breaking of existing laws with impunity is the greatest corruption anywhere in the world. We refuse to be harassed or intimidated. We are not strangers in this country. We are veritable stakeholders. We cannot be harassed. We have told them what to do.”

“Let the government come back to the negotiation’s table and let us discuss the grey areas. Forceful enlistment will not solve the problem. We are not disturbed but we are worried, the government is getting dictatorial. A supposedly democratic government is getting dictatorial.”

The union said that it had offered to be given the opportunity to develop an alternative to IPPIS.

The Zonal Coordinator of the union in Owerri Zone, Comrade Uzo Onyebinama, said this on Monday at a press conference held at the Imo State University (IMSU) Owerri.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the press conference was at the instance of Chairpersons of five ASUU unions in Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu University, Igboaram and the Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO).

Others are IMSU, Owerri, Nnamdi Asikiwe University, Awka and Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike.

He said the press conference was called to draw attention to burning issues that might lead to a breach of the industrial harmony in universities and cripple academic and research activities.

According to Onyebinama, IPPIS violates university autonomy and FGN/ASUU agreement and did not address the peculiarity inherent in the nature and structure of universities.

“Specifically, IPPIS violates and erodes university autonomy inherent in the extent provisions of section 2AA of the Universities Miscellaneous Provision (Amendement) Act 2003,” he said.

The ASUU zonal coordinator said that academic activities (teaching, research and community service) in universities had specific milestones with timelines.

“Universities are structured to be independent and free from civil service bureaucracy.

“As a result, university establishment is not only flexible and dynamic but also pragmatic with the primary objectives of rapid response to critical exigencies. IPPIS negates this.

“The Union views the claim by the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) that ASUU’s position against IPPIS is an endorsement of corruption as cheap blackmail.

“ASUU cannot be blackmailed into shirking her sacred responsibility of defending the autonomy of the universities.

“ASUU’s zero tolerance for corruption (individual and institutional) is widely acclaimed. The union has offered to be given the opportunity to develop an alternative to IPPIS,” he said.

Onyebinama said that the union had been clamouring for constitution of statutory visitation panels to federal universities that was long overdue, adding that visitation panels provided the platform for inquiring into the conduct of affairs of universities.

He said that the failure of the Federal Government to inquire into the affairs of universities through the instrument of visitation panels was the real endorsement of corruption.

On the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, he said that the attempt at the renegotiation which ought to have been renegotiated in 2012, had failed due to what he called high handedness of a team formed by government.

He alleged that the team acted out of a script deliberately designed to frustrate the renegotiation exercise.

“For 10 years, the salaries and allowance of staff members have remained constant, double digit inflation and the devaluation of the naira notwithstanding.

“We are, therefore, using this opportunity and the medium of the press to call on well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the FG to rescind the forceful and compulsory enrollment of universities into IPPIS.

“It should also ensure that the renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement is concluded without further delay. A stitch in time clearly saves nine.

“Our universities surely need a break from incessant industrial crisis caused by government insensitivity,” he said.