Embrace IPPIS, Buhari urges ASUU, promises better funding

The Federal Government defended its Integrated Personnel and Information System on Thursday, insisting that the policy had come to stay.

This came as the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), met with the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities and urged the lecturers to embrace IPPIS with a promise to increase university funding.

This, he said, would complement efforts being made to resolve the union’s face-off with the government over the IPPIS.

The government said at the meeting that up to 70 percent of university lecturers had already enrolled in the system, arguing that it was an indication of its acceptance by the majority of the teachers.

A government team which had the Minister of Education, Mr. Adamu Adamu; Minister of Finance/Budget/National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed; Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige; and the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, participated at the meeting where figures were presented before Buhari.

Findings indicated that Ahmed informed the session that up to 96,090 out of the 137,016 university lecturers in the federal universities across the country had already joined the scheme.

She was said to have stated that only 30 percent of lecturers were still opposing the policy.

Ahmed, who had in October 2019, disclosed that the IPPIS already saved the government over N250bn hitherto paid to ghost workers, argued at the meeting that with the progress achieved so far, the policy had come to stay.

However, The PUNCH learned that the ASUU’s team, led to the meeting by its President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, disputed the submission of the minister and expressed surprise that she could give such figures.