Accountant-General’s N80bn saga shows IPPIS is fraud – Emmanuel Osodeke

Emmanuel Osodeke, the national president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) describes the saga surrounding the arrest of Ahmed Idris, over N80bn as a pointer that the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IIPIS) is fraud.

Osodeke cautioned that the case involving Ahmed Idris, the accountant-general of the federation who was arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over money laundering and diversion of public funds allegations should not be covered up.

The ASUU president stated that the incident has buttressed the union’s opinion that IPPIS is fraud. He reiterated that IPPIS is just a fraud used by the accountant-general to siphon funds and not control corruption.

“We have said it over and over again that IPPIS is a fraud. We’ve also said that the accountant-general office is a fraud, and they are using IPPIS to relocate all the fraud activities to one centre, which is the accountant-general office and we have been vindicated. That’s our position,” Osodeke said.

Read also: Nigeria’s Accountant General suspended over N80bn fraud

The university don called on the EFCC to ensure that the accountant-general is taken to court. Besides, he reminded the commission of what the law says about a corrupt person when he noted that “corrupt persons” deserve punishment in line with Buhari’s administration’s vision.

“This IPPIS, I can tell you as we speak, that many of our members have not been paid for 13 months, 8 months, 9 months, but they are telling the government that they are using it to control corruption,” he stated.

Recall that the EFCC recently arrested Ahmed Idris, the country’s accountant- general over alleged N80 billion frauds.

And one of the demands of ASUU is that the federal government jettison the use of IPPIS as a payment platform as the union claimed the system is fraudulent.

Alternatively, ASUU preferred the use of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) for its members, which the federal government claimed did not pass the integrity test.