ASUU Strike: ASUU Get to Grips with NITDA.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, yesterday, berated the National Information Technology and Development Agency, NITDA, over what it described as ‘deliberate misinformation and disinformation of the public on the integrity test conducted on the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS, by the agency.
The Lagos Zonal Coordinator of the Union, Mr Adelaja Odukoya, who spoke at a press conference held at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, FUNAAB, said the utterances of the NITDA spokespersons are capable of elongating the ongoing strike.
According to Odukoya, its members would not return to the class until the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS, is adopted and all their allowances paid.
In his words: “We, however, want to draw the attention of all concerned to the deliberate misinformation and disinformation of the public by the National Information Technology and Development Agency, NITDA, on the state of the Integrity Test and the adoption of UTAS by Federal Government.
“While the re-assessment tests were ongoing, the DG, NITDA released misleading information to the public from the discredited report of the first test that UTAS failed again, leaving out the result of the jointly conducted second test of 99.3%. Our Union wonders how and where a 99.3% test score would be adjudged as a fail.
“We are aware that the position of the NITDA DG, Inuwa Abdullahi, is not consistent with the enthusiasm of the Technical Team from the agency he superintends over and the DG is unduly politicizing the testing exercise possibly in the interest of the Minister for Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami.
“Their dispositions amount to passing a vote of no confidence on the Nigerian intelligent system and our union would not let this slide.
“If the government allows itself to be misinformed and misdirected through the managerial incompetence of the NITDA officers, our union considers it the peak of insensitivity to the plight of the Universities, including staff, students and the country.”
Furthermore, ASUU argued that the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, IPPIS, was imposed on universities, despite its demonstrated shortcomings.
Odukoya also said: “The Federal Government’s forceful migration of our members unto the platform, even when our union was against it, demonstrated that the system does not accommodate the peculiarities of the university system.
“ASUU has consistently pointed out the obvious built-in deficiencies in IPPIS and the glaring superiority of our indigenously developed and home-grown UTAS as confirmed by all Government Agencies and stakeholders in the University System.”
“IPPIS is a fraud that permits the enrolment of ghost workers and constitutes a financial drain on the limited resources of the Nigerian State.
“This development was also recently reinforced by the confession of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Folashade Yemi-Esan, who alarmed that over 500 names of fake workers have infiltrated the IPPIS platform.
“IPPIS, as a payment platform is yet to be subjected to any Integrity Test by the government. Our union challenged the government to similarly subject IPPIS to Integrity Test as done to UTAS by independent technical teams”.
“ASUU, therefore, wants the Nigerian public to call the DG, NITDA to order on the point of integrity not to play politics and vendetta with the future of Nigeria and that of our public Universities as National treasures and collective patrimony of all Nigerian citizens.
“After the second re-assessment tests that ended on March 18, 2022, ASUU and NITDA technical teams agreed to reconvene on Monday, March 28, 2022, to conclude on the outstanding five test cases, demonstrate the payment gateway and implementation of other recommendations on the UTAS Platform. Surprisingly, NITDA on Wednesday, March 23rd, 2022 unilaterally cancelled the scheduled meeting of Monday, March 28th 2022 which was intended to conclude the report for onward submission to the Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment.
“It has become very clear to our Union that the unilateral cancellation of the meeting of Monday, March 28th was a proof that NITDA has come to the final stop and admitted failure in all the orchestrated unpatriotic attempts to sabotage and discredit UTAS which an otherwise forward-looking government would be finding ways of deploying beyond the Nigerian public universities for which it was designed. It can, therefore, not be over-emphasized that government has run out of reasons and lies not to accept, approve and adopt UTAS.”
Therefore, the Union will not be suspending the strike until the government addresses the adoption of UTAS, renegotiate the 2019 agreement, pay all outstanding allowances and fulfil all other issues contained in the Memorandum of Action signed with our union.
