Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has urged Federal Government to jettison its Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) for the union’s University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS).

The union’s National President, Mr Biodun Ogunyemi, spoke on Sunday at News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja.

The union leader said ASUU would support any step by the Federal Government to eradicate corrupt practices from the university system, but urged the government to embrace the union’s proposed payroll system.

President Muhammadu Buhari, on October 8, 2019, directed all government employees to be enrolled into IPPIS to ensure accountability and curb corruption in the system.

“In 2014, February precisely, after much debate about IPPIS, we told the government our reservations about IPPIS and the uniqueness of the universities.

“We thought they agreed with us. They said we should nominate three people and they will also nominate three persons, and then, we should come up with a platform that would be acceptable to ASUU.

“We did not hear anything from them. When they came back in July 2019, it was now a story that government had made up its mind that it is IPPIS.

“The platform we had in mind is the one we have now started because they pushed us to the point of taking on the challenge.

“ASUU will sponsor the development of that platform, which we call UTAS. It came about as a way of showing them that we are not against their war against corruption, that ASUU fully supports any step that will nip corruption in the bud,” he said.

Ogunyemi said the union’s payroll system would give government the opportunity to have access to control and monitor activities and progress of the universities.

“The difference between what they are doing now and UTAS is that what they are doing now is just government information system for payment.

“They just send the wage bill for universities into the university account and they ask them to pay and they monitor.

“In the case of UTAS, all the personnel information and the payroll system will be uploaded and there are about five components which we have segmented and developed.

“Not everybody will have access to all of these. So, we are saying that the best way to ensure university autonomy is to develop a system that will be resident in the university. But those in government can have access to control and monitor it.

“This will secure and safeguard the autonomy of the universities; that will also give government the opportunity to monitor what is going on in the system as regularly as they want to…”

ASUU National President also decried the recruitment system in the universities. He said: “Some lecturers have no business in the classrooms, but they found their way in due to political interference.

“You find that some lecturers probably have no business being in the universities. But you know politics has done so much damage to us that sometimes merit is sacrificed on the altar of mediocrity and political connections.

“We hope that we shall restore the credibility of the system as we have been trying to argue over the years. A key step to achieving that is for government to create the enabling environment for us to go back to the renegotiation table.

“We need to talk more so that we can come up with a new agreement package that will help us in addressing our universities’ shortcomings in no time.”

Ogunyemi also debunked the insinuation in some quarters that the union has a splinter group.

“I do not believe that there is a faction in ASUU. What you see that is playing out is the expression of misgivings by some of our members who are dissatisfied with the sanctions meted out to them for violating provisions of our constitution.

“And you will find the largest concentration at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife. In that university, you will also find that we still control up to 60 per cent or more of the membership.

“And, if you leave Ile-Ife and go to other campuses where they are pronouncing that they want to join one group or the other, you cannot count more than five in those universities.

“That tells you that the group we are talking about just exists in the air, that group is not on ground,” he said.

Ogunyemi also said it is not a crime for lecturers to teach in two different universities.

He said the diversity usually offer the opportunity of comparing standards.

ASUU president noted that teaching in two universities would only add to the system as it would enable lecturers to borrow and learn ideas from each other.

“The university systems allows for what we call Sabbatical. It is part of university tradition and practices all over the world. The purpose it serves is that you create window for peer review.”

In other words, what you are doing in University A, you go to University B and see whether that is what obtains exactly, or you need to borrow something, or you share some ideas.

“Sabbatical is a mechanism for assuring comparability of standards. Anybody that goes out for sabbaticals, when he or she comes back to the university, he adds value to the system.

“You are bringing something back, no matter how little, to the system. Where you have gone too, they get something from you.

“So, we encourage that, from time to time in the university system, because universities are regarded as universal places of learning and research,” he said.

Ogunyemi explained that lecturers, who embarked on sabbaticals are being paid by both their original employers and the benefiting institution.

According to him, before you go on sabbatical, you must write a proposal on what you want to do for that year. When you come back, you must present the result of what you have done.

“It is like a research/teaching leave. You also go to another place within Nigeria or outside Nigeria to acquire new information, knowledge and bring back the knowledge to add value to your work place.

“So, it is part of the inbuilt mechanism for developing the competencies and skills of the university academics for global competition. So, working in more than one place is not a crime.

“It is not something that is now being debated whether it is moral or immoral, because they are trying to read some moral script into it,” he said.

The Nation