IPPIS will not undermine university autonomy, Buhari assures ASUU

President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday appealed to striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to accept the Integrated Payroll Personnel Information System.

The university teachers embarked on a two weeks warning strike on Monday to protest the Federal Government’s non-payment of some of their colleagues’ salaries for allegedly refusing to enroll in the IPPIS.

Buhari, who spoke at the 14th convocation ceremony of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, described the union protest against the payment system as “needless.”

Represented by the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, the President said IPPIS was not meant to diminish the university autonomy.

He said: “I should not end this address without touching on IPPIS, which has been a bone of contention, and a needless one at that, between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities.

“I assure you all that the IPPIS is not intended to trample upon university autonomy nor is it designed to subsume the university into the civil service.

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“The primary intention of IPPIS is to enhance greater efficiency, transparency and better management of university finances. And this should be an important moral pillar of all universities where students are graduated based on character and learning.

“All universities must be committed to these cherished values if they are to serve as a moral compass to the larger society.”

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