 I.P.s, FEDRA GOVERNESANTS, UNIVERSITIES, POLITECNICS, AUTHORS, AND REVERSE CRICES, ASSEMBLY DECLAYED SEEDS OF 27 LAWMAKERS VAKAN, AS A MEWILE GROUP CONVENDS SITTING DAY AFTER COMPLEX STIMULATION, I AM BOLA OBA ANTHYS IS PLUS POLITICS. FEDRA UNIVERSITIES, POLITECNICS, AND COLLEGES OF EDUCATION, HAVE BEEN TAKEN OFF THE INTEGRATED PERSONAL PAYMENT SYSTEM, I.P.S. THE ASSEMTION APPROVAL REACHED TO IN THE FEDRALE EZEKT OF CANCEL METING AT THE PRESIDENTIAL VILLA IN ABOJA ON WONSTAY, COMES AS A RELIEVE TO TOUCHERY INSTITUTIONS ACROSS THE COUNTRY. The Minister of Education, Prof. Tayyar Mahman, disclosed this while briefing state as correspondents alongside other ministers on the outcome of the Federal Executive Council meeting, noting that this takes immediate effect. According to him, the council observed that vice-chancellors of universities did not need to abandon their work to come to Abuja to process the salaries of their personnel. We also have been very happy for the education sector, because one of the problems which the vice-chancellors to directors and provosts of college education, those managing the tertiary sector in Nigeria, have been complaining about, have been the subscription to IPPs.  של ڤ                                                                                                                                                                                                                           fox not longer our have be taking out off. That says it is very, very important development for the licensedthat for allow for efficient management of the university and tertiary education contributing and then secondly which is connected to that but before now, when the tertiary education institutions want to make recruitment, they have to run to the office of the head of service for waiver, for approval, for all that sort of thing. Today the council, through the director of the president, has exempted them from that. They have nothing to do, they don't have to go to the office of the head of service because it is actually not in the line of supervision. So that too, that has been a big bottleneck in management of staff in the universities where they have to apply to that office whenever there are vacancies and have built up a lot of vacancies in the universities and polytechnics and that level of service waiting sometimes for years, for months. And so from this, at this today's meeting, that requirement has been removed. So they will only be guided by what their law prescribes and then of course there are other levels of supervision. The NEC, the Federal Ministry of Education is there. So that's a very big relief for the universities and we sincerely hope that these measures will be responsibly reciprocated by the institutions. Joining us is former ASU chairman Prof. Rufus Lower. Prof, good to have you on PlusPolitics. Prof, what will be your initial response to the two concessions made by the Federal Executive Council yesterday to what has been ASU's age-long agitations? Well, thank you very much. This is actually a welcome development because the ASU has been present at this matter for a long time. Universities are supposed to ask their own autonomy. IPPS, as you see, is an encouragement to the autonomy of the universities. So for everything to be done separately at ASU, that means that each university of the council or university management, they have no control over the staff and the movement of the staff. In fact, we have seen that this advocate is one of the very good of the most, the issue of a ghost worker. There are some people who say what appeared there. They are not even, they are not even, because they have a point on the system. whereby they might not even know so much good that I wouldn't point in the system. They are not even aware of those workers. So there is no way they may be able to spend the proper day and the issue of the certain wages of a woman of the staff who does the proper control by the university management of the university administration. So it is a serious argument to the autonomy of the university. And therefore, this IPPS has also considered a lot of differences in terms of environmental conditions. Like you see, even this is not just a teaching institution. It is also a professional research and a professional idea among various universities. The use of IPPS has prevented many of our colleagues from even going on sabbatical within Nigeria. This idea can really affect everyone. Anybody that goes to mute the rules that sabbatical and anybody that invests in a woman will not be faced. And sabbatical is very, very essential for the good of research of every institution. No institution in any university of the world has been appointed as one of them. You need course for clarifications and ideas. You need a church that is promoted. You can go for more events in Nigeria. You know some of the tabloids of the imagine system that cannot be compared to IPPS. There is no way the IPPS can work for any institution in Nigeria. And you can see ever since the IPPS has started, it has started to grow to so many events in terms of the staff and the academic experience in Nigeria. Now we move with this scene. Is a welcome development. Is a welcome development. Prof. Is a welcome development but it automatically also precedes the degree of responsibility and accountability on associations such as ASL. And the reason is that people and journalists will be looking forward now to seeing the integrity of governance in our universities. Because we must remember that it was a regime of abuses that ultimately precipitated the idea of the IPPS. Now we stand in the fact that it was not done in a manner that was very reflective of the needs and the impurities of university governance. How would you respond to that? Let's get back. It's fine. It's because we don't have a good governance in place in many of our institutions. We provide corporate governance in place. We can check all these for accountability issues. Each institution we deal to regulate itself. Okay? Our government council, we have to do their work of oversight. The fact that the idea is not the one to take me there. That's why the government put government council there. And if we have the proper corporate governance legislation, this is what I expect government to do now. I mean, we should have the corporate governance legislation so that we know who and what is what. We should have to take this accountability issue. And so the organization that we have a lot of work to do now, okay, to put all these corporate governance in place. Maybe the financial reporting council, okay, I believe they are trying to do something on that, okay. So I mean to be able to put accountability in these different institutions. So each institution should be able to do this on their own. We are working as a government governance regulation in place. Then we comply with this. And we do the government council, okay. Then they try to do everything properly in each every institution. But why don't the government itself not be interfering? I think it's only in some of these government council issues. Once there is a regulation in place that everybody is supposed to comply with, the government council never knows their role. There is an approval limit. This is not their role. I mean, everything is well properly defined. Properly defined, okay. I believe the issue of accountability can be checked in Nigeria University system. It is because there is no government governance in place now. But in many of these institutions, that's why maybe we are having accountability issues. Okay, but these things can be done. But because of that, we have not eroded the autonomy of these investments. This government has said the performance of the investments. Thank you. Prof, you will agree with me that in so much as the theoretical presentation of corporate governance, as if just articulated sounds very convincing, you will agree with me that the universities, the tertiary institutions, not only the universities, the tertiary institutions in some respects one does not want to talk about it. Indeed, there was one particular occasion that the chair of the government council of a particular university's board came on national TV and called the vice chancellor a thief. And he said he had tapes to that effect. And you know what? The guy was relieved for investigation and was reinstated and on his statement we had even members of ASU jubilating with him from the gate of the university. So one is sitting there and one is thinking, you know what? It does seem in some respects too that ASU that should be a thought force of accountability, all being the management, the constitutional management of the university to account sometimes it does seem that there is a degree of complicity and things that don't show shortly that even one is obvious to the open eyes that you know what, things are not properly done, ego comes into it and you don't want ASU to be involved. One also, that will not be the direction we will be going after these victories for ASU. Okay, if I get you right and that is, you know, we expect to especially work up with lots of neighbors we have by the chair of the government council claim that we will see and we will be committed to my justice. Am I getting you right? Yes sir. Yes me. As I said, I am not committed, I agree with ASU. We have to work about this. Although what we are said to address, this is the sure of God to be the way to just ASU is involved also pretty and get my capability but what ASU is worth after another term was that the chair of the government is not following these wishes correctly. The deal was there was not for us. Prof, to be honest with you, some of us in the world of journalism and, you know, analysis of events, we know that the very reason why he did say that the VC and the ego triples of Unilog got away with mother was because the person concerned, and I am not mentioning names there, the person concerned had his own, had his own, you know, reputational baggage. If it was not for the fact that that person had his own reputational baggage, what happened in Unilog was indeed a disgrace to tertiary education management in Nigeria. If somebody had the temerity to come on national TV and call me a thief, I will litigate and I kept telling people that if that VC did not go ahead to litigate, it would be an indictment, not only against himself, but indeed against ASU that was celebrating with him when they instated him. And I concede the fact that even you said you weren't too happy with it and one is just praying at this juncture that the management of universities will not be going in that direction with some perceived degree of complicity by the local ASU leadership. That is the only thing that the point I am trying to make sir. But they, I, I, you know, we great, but no matter, we didn't, we didn't totally agree. There was the vision among us. Because as I said, my own point around that thing was the fact that we should have allowed the government council to have their way. If the government council says somebody is corrupt, the petition should be the one to grant the benefits, okay? The petition should also be the one to define itself. But the government also added to the whole point because the government should have tried to interfere with the university that is already an autonomy act that gave the government council, okay? The power to be the one to liquidate whereby it will be the vital system. So they are also the ones to also determine which way it will be. The government is trying to interfere in the whole process. The government is also, it is not the people, it is not the people that are involved in that matter. So what is very necessary now? What is very necessary is to have a good corporate governance in this now? So I must celebrate this kind of thing in future? I must celebrate your condo because for so long time I have never seen somebody this high up in Asu saying that at that point he or she was a bit, but having said that to wrap up now I must just ask you this question. Now that after long suffering, after abuses, after deniers, Asu has gotten this victory for the management of tertiary institutions in Nigeria because Asu was the most steadfast, especially on the issue of the over-centralization of the remuneration system. Now that Asu has gotten it some of your members felt that you people were just being unduly obstinate. How would you go now? I guess if the rain falls, it falls on everybody. It's going to be a general blessing, isn't it? Am I still on? Yes sir. My comment of that is that what the government has done now is part of the things Asu wanted. It's part of the demand of Asu and so it was good that the government itself saw it. It saw that this attitude might not really work for the universities. So that might say it's a well-called development and it's going to be well-embraced by Asu. Okay? So we also appeal to the government because since they have addressed one of these the demand of Asu the government should also ask the father to take another look at some of the demand of Asu that led to the last strike in 2022 because what Asu was demanding that time also was clear. Thank you very much Prof. We really appreciate your virtual presence on the program today. Thank you sir. Thank you so much. We wish you all the best. We go on the short break now and one way back we go on the second segment of the show. Thank you so much. Thank you sir.