IPPIS: ASUU members sneak to register, enrolment hits 937,000

We have been talking about, we cannot continue to push it under the carpet. Eventually, it will come back to bite us in the butt, big time’

 There are indications that some members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities are enrolling for the Integrated Personnel Payroll Integrated System contrary to the directive of the  union.

Investigations by The PUNCH on Wednesday revealed that institutions where lecturers were registering for the IPPIS included  the  University of Calabar and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

ASUU had last month opposed the IPPIS despite the Federal Government’s directive that any worker that failed to register for it would not be paid his December salary.

The union directed its members not to enrol for the IPPIS, which the Federal Government said was aimed at fighting corruption through payment of  salaries to each  employee’s  bank account.

But ASUU wondered why the   Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Federal Inland Revenue Service and a few other agencies were  not on the IPPIS.

But on Wednesday, the Federal Government said the agencies were not on the platform because they were revenue generating entities. It said 937,000 workers had registered for the IPPIS.

The IPPIS registration started in universities on November 25 and ends on December 7.

At the UNN, The PUNCH correspondent, who was in the institution, observed that workers were registering for the IPPIS, despite ASUU’s opposition.

The PUNCH reliably gathered that  some ASUU members had joined non-academic staff unions in the enrolment on both the Enugu and Nsukka campuses.

A worker of the university, who didn’t want his name mentioned, told one of our correspondents that members of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities , Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities  and the National Association of Academic Technologists  were the first to  come out for enrolment before ASUU members started joining them.

Some UNICAL lecturers register

Also at UNICAL, it was gathered that some ASUU members had been sneaking to the IPPIS registration area to enrol for the scheme.

A source  said, “The exercise has been highly successful. Many lecturers have been sneaking into the venue to register.”

When the Chairman of ASUU in UNICAL, Dr John Edor, was contacted, he said there were only few isolated cases.

He said, “They are not sneaking. No ASUU member is sneaking. If the people are sneaking, I am not a witch to discover that. But I tell you on good authority that we have very high level compliance (boycott).

What you may find is a situation like Faculty of Agriculture where we have about 140 lecturers and only two lecturers defaulted. You have those isolated instances. On a general note, we are coasting away with about 98 per cent victory.”