Gbenga Sodeinde in Ado Ekiti
The management of public universities and other tertiary institutions have been urged to see their recent removal from the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) as a new opportunity to reinvigorate and transform the system.
A former Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) of the Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado Ekiti, Prof Femi Olaofe, who stated this, described the move as a “highly welcome idea and development.”
Speaking with journalists in Ado Ekiti, the professor of Chemical Engineering/ Industrial Chemistry advised vice-chancellors and other principal officers of the institutions to make judicious use of the resources now at their disposal, deploying and managing them effectively.
Olaofe said, “This is the only way we can have improved training in the tertiary institutions where manpower is produced for the nation. Now, universities can settle down and plan their academic work very well and improve the quality of their products.
“Not that alone, even the university lecturers can do better research than before by putting improved facilities in place, the workings of the system will be boosted with appropriate management of their financial resources and so on. We are now more or less back to the way they were running it before.”
He also appealed to the federal government to give the universities 100 per cent of what would pay their entire wage bills and adequate funds to develop the institutions.
“But what I will appreciate more is that subvention should cover the payment of salary, development of infrastructure and maintenance of same and all facilities in the universities and let’s see how the vice-chancellors, the bursar and other principal officers are going to manage the financial resources of their institutions,” Olaofe explained.
He added, “I will also want them to appeal to the management of these institutions to be highly focused and maintain their integrity by being accountable, manage the resources effectively and make a name for themselves by setting standards through the development of the system.”
Olaofe called on the government, industries, and governments in Nigeria to always consult the universities more for the research rather than give such things to outsiders.
The retired university teacher also warned against seeing the position of the vice-chancellor of a university as a political appointment, saying there are requirements and conditions to be met for anyone to qualify for the post that is far different from the election of political officers.
