The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calabar (UniCal), Professor Florence Obi, has said that the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) prevented the university from recruiting its top-performing graduates.
Speaking to journalists ahead of the university’s 37th convocation ceremony, Obi noted that administrative constraints had made it difficult to retain outstanding scholars.
Moses Udofia, a graduate of the Accounting Department with a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 4.92, emerged as the institution’s best-graduating student this year.
The vice-chancellor explained that despite the university’s desire to employ its brightest graduates, securing waivers from the relevant authorities had been a major challenge.
“This limitation has been a setback for us, as we are unable to retain some of the most brilliant young scholars we have produced,” Obi said.
“The ideal approach would have been to absorb them early and groom them to contribute to the future of the university system.
“In my first convocation, we announced our plan to retain all first-class graduates of that year, but we later realised it was not feasible due to these bureaucratic constraints.
“We were not granted the necessary waivers by the Head of Service, which meant we kept losing some of our best minds,” she added.
However, Obi expressed optimism that the situation might improve this year.
“For this year’s graduates, we may be lucky. IPPIS has been removed, and we now have a waiver to recruit about 350 new staff members. We are currently awaiting further details on the breakdown and budgetary provisions,” she stated.
She assured that once funds were allocated for recruitment, exceptional graduates from the university would be given priority.
