By Chuks NZEH
The General Secretary of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities, NASU, Comrade Peters Adeyemi, has said that the IPPIS has been a major problem for his union, alleging that the government deceived then into joining the payment system.
Adeyemi, who is also the president, Public Service International, PSI, for Africa and Arab Region, made this known recently in Abuja, where he also noted that the payment of the second tranche of earned allowances was not properly distributed like the previous payment.
He said, “One of the things that has been a real problem for our union is the IPPIS. The federal government wanted to use it to check corruption and reduce ghost workers in the system, and it is very obvious that three of the four unions in the universities and other centers keyed into the IPPIS while ASUU sustained its opposition. As at the time we keyed into it, we were deceived by government functionaries. They deceived us that our members were not going to lose anything if we key into that system.”
He further said that, “as public servants, we are expected to have some level of trust in our government. If we decided to key into that process to ensure accountability and transparency and there is sanity in the system, it should be seen that even trade union leaders are patriotic citizens of this country that want forward movement as against a situation where a few elements at the helm of affairs in our tertiary institutions use their exalted offices to hide under the personnel payment of salaries to siphon government money and that was why we keyed into it but unfortunately, it didn’t happen the way we were told .
“IPPIS became a disaster, and at a point it vindicated ASUU. It is like ASUU saw it can never work for them to take that stance. When they started implementation in February 2020, we had avalanche of problems; some of our members were not paid at all, some of them were paid lower than what they are expected to be paid, some of the things that had never happened to payment of our members’ salaries started happening.”
Driver in court for criminal breach of trust
By Williams ABAH
A 24-years-old farmer, Zakari Mohammed, on Friday appeared before a Zuba Upper Area Court, Abuja, for allegedly swindling his employer of N250,000.
Mohammed of the Shanagu community in the Zuba area of Abuja is being tried for criminal breach of trust and cheating. The defendant, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The prosecution counsel, Chinedu Ogada, told the court that the complainant, Fidelis Simon of New Nyanya in Karu, Nasarawa State, reported the matter at Zuba Police Station on June 4.
The prosecutor alleged that sometime in January 2021, Simon allegedly had an agreement with Mohammed in which a vehicle for commercial purposes was entrusted in the care of the defendant.
Ogada alleged that both of them agreed that the defendant would remit the sum of N50,000 to the complainant’s account monthly from the transport business.
Ogada told the court that the defendant was in possession of the vehicle for five months, which amounted to N250,000 the prosecutor said that the defendant allegedly failed to remit the amount as agreed.
Ogada also alleged that the defendant, who had damaged the vehicle beyond repairs, also escaped but was arrested by the police. According to him, the offence contravened the provision of sections 312 and 322 of the Penal Code Law.
The presiding judge, Umar Angulu, however, admitted the defendant to bail in the sum of N500, 000, with one surety in like sum.
Angulu ordered that the surety must reside within the court’s jurisdiction and have a reliable means of livelihood and identity card, which must be verified by the court registrar.
The judge adjourned the case until January 23, 2022, for hearing.
