The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said that its opposition to the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information Systems (IPPIS) as a vehicle for corruption has been vindicated by the arrest and detention of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, over alleged N80 billion fraud by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The IPPIS was allegedly being used to milk the already oppressed Nigerian workers dry and expose them to more poverty in the midst of plenty,the union said in a statement signed
by the chairman of ASUU at the Federal University, Otuoke, Bayelsa State, Socrates Ebo.
The arrest and detention of the Accountant-General of the Federation has exposed to Nigerians what ASUU has always known. IPPIS has always been a conduit pipe that a heartless government mafia has been using to milk the country dry and oppress the long-suffering, hapless, poverty-damaged Nigerian workers,the statement said .
It added:”It is sad that Nigerian workers have continued to groan under government oppression in a country that is endowed with plentifulness and abundance of every gift of nature one can think of.It is sad enough that Nigerian lecturers are paid next to nothing. On top of that, the IPPIS mafia in government still steal from that meagre salary in the name of all manner of fraudulent and arbitrary deductions!
“Why is it difficult for Nigeria to produce a single world class university while lesser endowed countries like Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Namibia and South Africa boast of far better equipped universities?We thank the government for finally remembering to pay some lecturers their minimum wage arrears after three good years, but what crime have lecturers committed that the government has maliciously withheld their salary for three good months under the present unpleasant economy?
“So, the government shamelessly want to punish lecturers for demanding that government should make our universities better?So, it is now an offence to urge government to develop and improve education? Why is government bent on starving lecturers to submission? Why is government bent on punishing us with starvation? Is the country not hard enough already?”