ASUU: To Engage Govts In A Disguised Autocracy Is Burdensome -By Andrew A. Erakhrumen

EVERY society, Nigeria not being an exception, has its “good, bad, and ugly” parts (and past)! However, what mainly differentiates societies is the part(s) that are, collectively, propped up and constantly reinforced. Ideally, this means that a society (for several reasons) decides on its preferences and follows them up by encouraging what it considers appropriate collectively-agreed morals; endeavouring to discourage what it deems bad. Naturally, the foregoing is based on the standard set by society through its value system. What a society puts at the top of its list of priorities is important in this kind of discourse.

For example, the issues concerning “corruption – whatever definition it has been given – in the public domain can be helpful here. We use the Integrated Payroll Personnel Information System, IPPIS, to illustrate our point. This IPPIS was introduced to the public sometime in October, 2006, into the public service by the Federal Government of Nigeria to administer the monthly payroll of its workers, curtail fraud or other anomalies on its payroll and guarantee confidence in staff emoluments.

Like many failed or morbid plans, IPPIS (designed ab initio for failure), appears good, superficially! Nonetheless, the concealed intended reality is to hijack and relocate payroll fraud and associated corruption to the centre! A series of frauds and other malfeasances on payrolls belonging to the government, at all levels, have been in existence for decades in Nigeria, but they recently got more centralised. For the Federal Government, in the last 15 years or so, it was through IPPIS for the benefit of a few top civil servants, bureaucrats, and politicians! It has always been a case of ‘everyone’ staying in line for his or her turn to have a share from the “national cake”. Honestly, it is difficult to disagree with them! These centralised frauds, among others, perpetrated right under the Federal Government’s nose, were earlier noticed, and an alarm sounded, by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU. This is apart from ASUU’s objection to IPPIS owing to the fact that it does not take care of public universities’ peculiarities. In addition, IPPIS was, and still is, being used to illegally fractionalise workers’ salaries at will! Civil servants in the government’s various ministries, departments, and agencies, cheated by ‘stealing’ from their salaries, using IPPIS, may not complain publicly, but investigative journalism will assist them in this regard!

Well, now, ASUU and other well-meaning people should continue to expose IPPIS scams! As said earlier, it is doubtless that there are people benefiting from the series of ‘organised crimes’ anchored on the weaknesses associated with the IPPIS platform! This is why it was (and still is) blindly insisted upon for federal universities’ members of staff. To be fair, the immediate past Ministers of (1) Labour and Employment, (2) Communications and the Digital Economy, and (3) Education ‘unwillingly’ acknowledged, somehow, on different occasions, in 2022, that IPPIS is inferior to universities. Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS, was developed locally by scientists. The development of UTAS was solely funded by ASUU for managing payroll in Nigerian federal universities without any cost to the government; although, the beneficiaries of IPPIS scams kept churning out half-witted lies and lame propaganda that the IPPIS platform is the best thing that has happened to the country’s payroll management system since sliced bread; whereas IPPIS is simply another conduit pipe for stealing public funds! Or, was IPPIS not part of the ‘network’ through which funds diversion and money laundering of a minimum of N109.4 billion was alleged to have been executed by the (suspended) Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, from whom N30 billion was recovered? This is according to Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, as reported by the media in December 15, 2022.

We found it difficult to believe the news report that Idris was fiddling with the idea of plea bargaining after promoting IPPIS to the heavens! In fact, it was claimed that “IPPIS (with the then-observed inherent) and (other newly introduced weaknesses) did help…..in federal ministries, to discover ghost workers (they said about 7,000) saved more than N273 billion between 2017 and 2018 alone…..” Interesting! Can you believe that this is the same IPPIS platform that fake workers have infiltrated? This is not our claim! It was that of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Folashade Yemi-Esan, who was quoted by newspapers, to have raised this ‘alarm’ in April 2022! Nigeria’s treasury was (and is still likely to be) seriously fleeced under federal and state governments that claimed to not have enough resources for funding public education; public universities are expected to be self-funded in an under-developing country! We ask again: what action(s) was, is, or are being taken against the perpetrator(s) of these crimes? We are unaware of any seriousness in bringing those scammers to justice! Then, why should government expect to be taken seriously? Are criminal acts not supposed to be discouraged with appropriate, legitimate sanctions?

The alleged past connivance of some people in government with the ‘fraudsters’ at the IPPIS office has spawned more criminality; a national daily of July 13, 2023, quoted Ifeanyi Ubah, a Nigerian senator (while moving a motion during a plenary), to have said that “recent allegations of bribery, corruption, and delayed capture and payment of some university staff recruited as far back as 2020 through the IPPIS has called for an urgent investigation of those irregularities because of the untold hardship caused to the affected university staff and their families.” These allegations…..have cast serious doubt on the credibility and suitability of IPPIS as a platform for managing the payroll of university staff as an institution clothed with autonomy for the purposes of teaching, learning, and research. Consequently, the Senate wants Nigerians to believe that it has “resolved, after a debate, to investigate the allegations of bribery and corruption against IPPIS officials at various universities across the federation…..” Yes, these are still allegations! In fact, there are many alleged unbridled corrupt practices under Muhammadu Buhari! I hope that this investigation will yield positive fruit, as Nigeria’s usual practice is to move the benefits of corruption from one group(s) of beneficiaries to another – mostly when there is a ‘change’ in government!

It was unbelievable and scandalising that Buhari’s government, which came to power with loud anti-corruption mantra, could be later openly and convincingly accused of all types of corruption! In actual fact, it became increasingly difficult to define what corruption was or is in Nigeria! This might have contributed to what made the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Kukah, to recently state that “….we have seen the worst phase of corruption in Nigeria [under Buhari]…..” Have we really seen the worst? phase? Maybe! But nobody can say, as the future is pregnant!

Nonetheless, humans have advanced science and technology to the level of being able to give information (with almost 100 per cent certainty) about the state of yet-unborn fetuses! We really do not want to sound pessimistic, but the current signals in Nigeria’s political firmament do not inspire hope. Sincerely, I would have loved to be optimistic, but this is still Nigeria, where anything goes! Nigerians should disallow being conditioned to expect little from life!

Concerning public universities, ASUU should not indulge pretenders and unjustifiably disgruntled elements who have nothing to lose but more to gain if these universities collapse totally. It should be rightfully insisted upon that university workers’ welfare, the working environment, and associated conditions must be improved in a sustainable manner! So, ASUU should be supported by all and sundry in its dogged determination to make this real.

Erakhrumen, PhD, currently teaches at the Department of Forest Resources and Wildlife Management, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria.