Reports by The Punch Newspaper disclosed that some members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have started enrolling for the Integrated Personnel Payroll Integrated System (IPPIS) contrary to the directive of the union.
The reports on Wednesday, December 4, revealed that institutions where lecturers were registering for the IPPIS included the University of Calabar and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
The Herald gathered that the 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 government said was aimed at fighting corruption through payment of salaries to each employee’s bank account.
ASUU. however, 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.
The government on Wednesday, December 4, explained that the agencies were not on the platform because they were revenue generating entities. It said 937,000 workers had registered for the IPPIS. It was learnt that the IPPIS registration started in universities on November 25 and ends on December 7.
It was also learnt 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, however, said some 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.
A source said: “The exercise has been highly successful. Many lecturers have been sneaking into the venue to register.”
On his part, the Chairman of ASUU in UNICAL, Dr John Edor, 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.”