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JUST IN: FG Exempts Universities, Polytechnics, Others From IPPIS

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The Federal Government on Wednesday approved the exemption of universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and other tertiary institutions of learning from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System.

It said, henceforth, remunerations to staff members of these institutions would no longer flow through the platform.

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The Minister of the Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, disclosed this to State House Correspondents after this week’s Federal Executive Council meeting at the State House, Abuja.

The FG reasoned that the IPPIS does not afford tertiary institutions the freedom to run their affairs, Idris said.

READ ALSO: JUST IN: Fubara Presents 2024 Budget To Five Rivers Lawmakers

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He explained, “Today, the universities and other tertiary institutions have gotten a very big relief from the integrated personnel payroll and information system. You will recall that the university authorities and others have been clamouring for exempting the universities and other tertiary institutions from this system.

“Today, the Council has graciously approved that. What that means is that going forward, the universities, as the Honorable Minister of Education has said and other tertiary institutions, the polytechnics and colleges of education will be taken off the IPPIS.

“What that means in simple language is that the university authorities and other tertiary institutions will now pay their personnel from their own end instead of relying on the IPPIS.”

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The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, who explained the rationale for the Council’s decision, said the goal was to allow for the efficient running of public educational institutions nationwide.

READ ALSO: JUST IN: Fubara Presents 2024 Budget To Five Rivers Lawmakers

He argued that Wednesday’s move is not connected to the integrity of IPPIS, the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, or other similar systems advocated by various bodies.

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Mamman said, “Simply, the president and the Council are just concerned about the efficiency of management of the universities, and so it has nothing to do with integrity or platform options.

“The president cannot understand why Vice Chancellors should be leaving their duty post and run to Abuja to get staff enlisted on IPPIS when they get recruited.

“The basic concern is that universities are governed by laws. And those laws give them autonomy in certain respects and most respects and the IPPIS has sort of eroded that autonomy granted universities is accordance with their act.

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READ ALSO: Rivers Assembly Declares Seats Of 27 Defected Lawmakers Vacant

In October 2006, the FG introduced the IPPIS as one of its reform initiatives for the effective storage of personnel records, saying the move would improve transparency and accountability.

IPPIS, which was expanded to cover all ministries, departments and agencies that draw personnel costs from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, has been touted by the government as a means of saving billions of Naira and improving transparency in salary payments.

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However, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, the umbrella body for lecturers in Nigerian universities, resisted the implementation of IPPIS within universities, arguing that it undermines university autonomy and does not accommodate the unique nature of academic work.

ASUU has instead proposed an alternative system called the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, which they believe better addresses the peculiarities of the university system, such as sabbatical leave, adjunct engagements and part-time contracts.

READ ALSO: Rivers Lawmakers’ Defection Violates APC Constitution – Party Chieftain

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ASUU and other academic unions argue that IPPIS centralisation impedes the governing councils’ ability to effectively manage personnel and payroll, affecting strategic planning and the autonomy of universities.

This has led to tensions and a protracted standoff, with ASUU continuing to push for the adoption of UTAS over IPPIS, which they see as a foreign-imposed system unsuitable for the Nigerian tertiary education sector.

Despite the government’s attempts to enforce IPPIS, ASUU has held firm, leading to strikes and disruptions in academic activities, including an eight-month hiatus in educational activities that ended in 2022.

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More details to come…

 

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Peter Obi Condemns Tinubu’s Saint Lucia Trip

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Labour Party leader and former presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has criticised President Bola Tinubu’s planned trip to Saint Lucia, describing it as poorly timed and lacking in sensitivity, especially amid Nigeria’s deepening economic and security challenges.

Tinubu is expected to leave Nigeria on Saturday for Saint Lucia and is also scheduled to attend the upcoming BRICS summit in Brazil.

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In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday, Obi expressed dismay over the president’s travel, questioning the state of governance in the country.

Obi argued that Tinubu’s trip highlights a pattern of misplaced priorities by the administration, particularly at a time when citizens are grappling with widespread hunger and insecurity.

READ ALSO:Strike: NLC To Shutdown FCT After Tinubu’s Project Inaugurations Labour

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“What I have seen and witnessed in the last two years has left me in shock about poor governance delivery and apparent channelling of energy into politics and satisfaction of the elites, while the masses in our midst are languishing in want,” Obi stated.

He lamented the toll of rising insecurity across Nigeria, pointing out the country’s deteriorating safety situation.

In the past two years, Nigeria has lost more people to all sorts of criminality than a country that is officially at war.

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“Without any twilight, Nigeria ranks among the most insecure places in the world. Nigerians are hungrier, and most people do not know where their next meal will come from,” he wrote.

READ ALSO:Wike Defends ₦39bn ICC Renovation, Renaming Edifice After Tinubu

Obi said he was stunned when he learned of the President’s travel plans, especially following what he described as a recent holiday in Lagos.

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With such a gory picture of one’s country, you can imagine my bewilderment when I saw a news release from the Presidency announcing that President Bola Tinubu is departing Nigeria today for a visit to Saint Lucia in the Caribbean,” he said.

Quoting Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister, Philip J. Pierre, Obi noted that the visit comprises both official and personal segments.

According to the Prime Minister’s announcement, ‘two of these days, June 30 and July 1, will be dedicated to an official visit, with the remainder of the trip set aside as a personal vacation,” he said.

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Obi noted that he initially found the report hard to believe.

READ ALSO:How Atiku, El-Rufai, Amaechi Can Learn From Tinubu’s School Of Politics

I told the person who drew my attention to the Caribbean story that it cannot be true and that the President is just coming back from a holiday in Lagos.

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“I didn’t want to believe that anybody in the position of authority, more so the President… would contemplate a leisure trip at this time,” Obi said.

He condemned Tinubu’s failure to visit disaster-stricken areas like Minna in Niger State, where over 200 people reportedly died and hundreds remain missing due to flooding.

This is a President going for leisure when he couldn’t visit Minna, Niger State where over two hundred lives were lost and over 700 persons still missing in a flood natural disaster,” he said.

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READ ALSO:PHOTOS: President Tinubu Receives Queen Mary Of Denmark At State House

Obi also took issue with Tinubu’s recent trip to Benue State, claiming it was politically motivated rather than compassionate.

The other state in crisis where over two hundred lives were murdered, the President yielded to public pressure and visited Makurdi… for what turned out to be a political jamboree than condolence as public holiday was declared and children made to line up to receive the President who couldn’t even reach the village, the scene of the brutal attack,” he said.

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Drawing comparisons between Nigeria and Saint Lucia, Obi questioned the logic of prioritising a visit to the Caribbean nation over addressing pressing domestic issues.

Makurdi is 937.4 Km², which is over 59% bigger than St Lucia, which is 617 km², and Minna is 6789 square kilometres, which is ten times bigger than St Lucia. St Lucia, with a population of 180,000, is less than half of Makurdi’s 489,839 and Minna, with 532,000 is almost three times the population of St Lucia,” the former Anambra governor said.

READ ALSO:‘Peace Has Returned To Rivers’ — Wike, Fubara Speak After Meeting Tinubu

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He concluded his post by stressing the urgent need for leadership that is grounded in empathy and focused on addressing the suffering of ordinary Nigerians.

He said, “I don’t think the situation in this country today calls for leisure for anybody in a position of authority, more so the President, on whose desk the buck stops.

“This regime has repeatedly shown its insensitivity and lack of passion for the populace…”

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Obi added, “This very obvious indifference of the federal government to the suffering of the Nigerian poor should urgently be reversed.

“One had expected the President to be asking God for extra hours in a day for the challenges, but what we see is a concentration of efforts in the 2027 election and on satisfying the wealthy while the mass poor continues to multiply in number.

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World Bank Lists Nigeria Among 39 Nations Facing Rising Poverty, Hunger

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The World Bank has listed Nigeria among 39 countries where poverty and hunger are deepening as a result of conflict and instability.

In a report released on Friday, the bank said the economies, a mix of low- and middle-income countries, span all global regions. Among them are Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Sudan, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe.

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The report, which assesses the economic impact of conflict and fragility in the post-COVID-19 era, revealed that 21 of the 39 countries are experiencing active conflict.

READ ALSO:World Customs Organisation Elects Adeniyi Chairperson

According to the findings, extreme poverty is rising more rapidly in these countries, taking a severe toll on economic development, worsening hunger, and derailing progress toward key development goals.

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Since 2020, the report noted, the average per capita GDP of these economies has declined by 1.8 per cent annually, in contrast to a 2.9 per cent growth rate recorded in other developing countries.

The report partly reads: “This year, 421 million people are struggling on less than $3 a day in economies afflicted by conflict or instability—more than in the rest of the world combined.

“That number is projected to rise to 435 million, or nearly 60% of the world’s extreme poor, by 2030.”

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Nigeria’s Public Debt Rises To N149trn

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Nigeria’s total public debt rose to N149.39 trillion as of March 31, 2025, according to the latest data released by the Debt Management Office (DMO).

The nation’s public debt represents the indebtedness of the federal and state governments, as well as the Federal Capital Territory.

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The Federal Government owes N74.89 trillion, while the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) owe the balance of N3.87 trillion.

READ ALSO:World Customs Organisation Elects Adeniyi Chairperson

The figure represents about 4. 72 trillion or 3.3 percent increase over the preceding quarter, with a debt stock figure of N144.67 trillion.

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The data showed that external debt rose minimally by 0.5 percent between the end of 2024 and the end of March 2025 (N344 billion).

Although the nation’s external borrowing has been quite low since the last quarter of 2024, the Naira depreciation has had a very negative effect on the stock.

Domestic debt stood at N78.76 trillion as of the end of the first quarter compared to N65.65 trillion in March 2024.

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