The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) at the weekend on said the forced enrolment of university lecturers in the Integrated Payment and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) platform by the Federal Government has resulted in the sacking of contract lecturers across higher institutions in the country.
The National President of ASUU, Prof Biodun Ogunyemi, who disclosed this in an interview with newsmen, cited Bayero University, Kano State, and Federal University, Wukari, Taraba State, where the disengagement of contract lecturers had already been carried out.
He warned that such moves undermined the university autonomy to recruit competent local and foreign scholars, as was the global practice.
Ogunyemi added that lecturers at the University of Maiduguri, Borno State, and the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, had yet to receive their February and March salaries.
“There are still two universities which had not got their salaries – Michael Okpara University and the University of Maiduguri. What we also suspected has now been confirmed; they forcefully moved our members to the IPPIS and consequently, contract staff have been sacked. And the disengagement of the contract staff is a disservice to the Nigerian university system as we have it today.
“The first problem with that is that it is going to rob our universities of the high calibre human resources in certain areas. These are areas where we have a scarcity of personnel. If I ask you, how many professors of neurosurgery…
