IPPIS has made us poorer, SSANU laments

Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has said that the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) impoverished its members.

The National President of SSANU, Mohammed Ibrahim, made this statement in Bauchi over the weekend at maiden its North East Zonal Executive Meeting and Workshop themed ‘Team Building for Effective Service Delivery and Strategic Position for Influencing the Influencer’ at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi State.

He said: “Our members are suffering; they are relegated in terms of welfare. But we are not deterred. We have not arrived; we are still in the process.

“Individually at our different levels in our universities, some of us, as branch leaders, were able to convince our councils and managements to understand that hazard is hazard. Everybody in Nigeria, including members of SSANU, is facing hazard.”

According to him, the councils and managements had been convinced that SSANU had started benefitting from hazard allowances, before IPPIS came to mutilate their salaries, leaving them poorer.

He said that his leadership came at a challenging period because it inherited so many problems.

Ibrahim added that SSANU was living in a pariah nation and was in the third row in the activities of unionism in Nigeria, but within seven months, the story started changing for good because of the synergy they were having with those that matter.

He said: “The major crux is that our 2009 agreement, which was not done with preparedness, has given us so much problem as members of SSANU.”

Ibrahim eulogised the ATBU vice chancellor as a simple and humble leader, unlike heads of some universities who carry themselves as governors.

“Your Vice Chancellor is a comrade; we came to Bauchi in the same plane this morning and I have not seen mobile police or Department of State Services (DSS) officials as we can see in other universities moving around with Hilux van with siren.

“In other universities today, VCs operate like governors and you dare not try them. But just after their tenure, they become something else,” he said.

In his speech, SSANU Vice President, North East, Audu Isah, lamented the insecurity in the country and called on the members to contribute their quota towards finding lasting solution to the problems rather than compounding them through their utterances, actions and write-ups.