The Federal Government says it has come to its notice that Vice-Chancellors of some of its universities are indirectly demonstrating unwillingness to key into the policy of Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, (IPPIS).
A December 2nd memo from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to all Vice-Chancellors is promising the suspects what the memo calls appropriate sanction after the December 6th, 2019 deadline for failure of leadership to key into “this government policy designed to promote transparency and accountability in the government expenditure”.
The memo or is it directive? signed by Idris Ahmed for the AG of the Federation clearly suggests the government is on warpath, with the language of the memo clearly working on stoppage of salaries at some point.
It is not clear if it will win the war that way because the university system is so down that it cannot afford loss of even 10 of the type of academics that are also involved in ASUU politics. Whether the country can afford shutting down the university system at a time the youth bulge has produced a security dimension to the Nigerian crisis is debatable.
This is beside the legal technicalities involved such as the fact that academics are not employees of the Federal Government but of university councils with a status in law different from the FG. Whether the FG can take it in its stride the arbitrariness involved in a raw directives to the university councils to do its bidding on this issue remains interesting to watch.
