TECHDIGEST  – The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has extended the 1 month warning strike to additional two months making a total of three months.

With the latest development, a whole quarter of a year, the lecturers would not work but would receive their monthly salaries and allowances while demoralized Nigerian students will remain idle and away from academic activities.

It is sad and irrational that at this point of economic meltdown, insecurity and educational challenges, students are at the receiving end of the fight between ASUU and the federal government.

We often blame political leaders for being self-centredness, lecturers too who are now becoming activists than scholars are not different with their nonchalant attitudes in regards to the plights of Nigerian students, especially the youths who are leaders of tomorrow.

ALSO READ : UTAS: ASUU’s Payment App Failed Integrity Test – NITDA

What is even more disturbing is needless controversy over payment platforms to be used for the lecturers.

The ASUU has demanded that the federal government should adopt the Universities Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) payment platform in place of the popular Integrated Personnel and Payments Information System (IPPIS).

IPPIS is a federal government-controlled platform which is being used by the federal government for its workers including those in the military, security and intelligence services. The platform combines and harmonizes the payments of federal employees’ salaries and wages directly into their bank accounts with the appropriate deductions and remittances of third-party payments.

The director-general of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa recently disclosed that UTAS) failed three integrity tests.

According to him, the tests were meant to qualify UTAS — which was brought forward by ASUU to IPPIS.

ASUU has been on strike since February 14, and part of the reasons for the industrial action is that the federal government has refused to accept UTAS as a payment platform to replace the IPPIS.

Speaking on the matter, Inuwa said ASUU is currently reviewing the system.

NITDA boss said building a complex system like UTAS that involves employees’ personal data, and also payment system, must be subjected to best practice tests before approving.

He added that NITDA conducted a user acceptance test, a vulnerability test to check for possibility of hacking, and a stress test to prevent the system from crashing.

“We did all these three tests with them and the system couldn’t pass. We wrote the reports and submitted it back to the honourable minister, which he forwarded to all relevant institutions, including ASUU. As we speak now, ASUU is working, trying to fix all the issues we highlighted with the system and we will review it again. But that is just one half of the story,” he said.

Reacting to the development, ASUU president, Emmanuel Osodeke, denied alleged failure of the integrity test on UTAS. He said integrity test was carried out by NITDA on August 10, 2021 in NUC where relevant government agencies and all the end-users in the university system were present.

“At the end of the exercise, all, without exception, expressed satisfaction with UTAS as a suitable solution for salary payment in our universities. This was attested to by the report coming from NITDA then to the effect that UTAS scored 85 per cent in User Acceptance Test (UAT),” he said.

According to him, in a curious twist of submission, the NITDA technical team, after conducting a comprehensive functionality test came out to say that out of 687 test cases, 529 cases were satisfactory, 156 cases queried and 2 cases cautioned.

He added that taking this report on its face value, the percentage score was 77 per cent.

I was a bit curious by the simplistic argument of ASUU President, an academic professor who insisted that 77 per cent in any known fair evaluation system cannot be categorized as failure. Really?

Technology advancement, especially that has to do with lives, finances by be 100% accurate. Can a perfect car for instance with Air Conditions, Electronic gadgets including Television, computers can operate with a small to operate the union?

Well, that is by the side. The fact is that over 700 MDAs have registration on IPPIS platform, including research institutions who do go on sabbatical, study and leaves do obtain with their allowances paid in due process. Not to forget that the National Executive Councils is as well part of the payment roll.

Even as it is known that not academics agree with the adoption of the UTAS payment platform to replace IPPIS, the precarious brawl between ASUU and FG has negatively affected students who are the leaders of tomorrow.

With the recent huge national depth, it is doubtful if the federal government could approve enormous amount of money ASUU demand in honor of their last in 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA).

I pray and hope the government and ASUU will come up with a common ground to end this strike and enable the students return to school, because as much as the students are tired, the parents too will continue bear the monetary consequence of the battle of the two elephants.

Zeenat O. Sambo, Citec Estate, Jabi Abuja zeenatsambo@yahoo.com

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TECHDIGEST – The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) yesterday resolved to put on hold its decision on strike. The varsity teachers’ union took stand to give room for further consultations and after receiving reports from its branches.

According to the union, the decision was taken after a December 18 meeting to review the level of government’s implementation of the FGN-ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) of December 23, last year and other related matters.

In a statement issued after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting on Sunday, ASUU welcomed the recommendation of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) that the payment platform – University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) developed by the university lecturers be deployed in government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

ASUU National President Prof Emmanuel Osodeke said areas highlighted by NITDA in its report would be addressed.

Prof. Osodeke referred to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system (IPPIS), engineered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank as evil, stressing that the continuous use of the IPPIS had created distortions in the payment lecturers’ salaries.

He wondered why it took more than one year to get the needed feedback on the home-grown solution – UTAS – at a time Nigeria is yearning for “local content”.

He said: “NEC is pleased that the end-user evaluation report overwhelmingly endorses UTAS for immediate deployment by government for Nigerian universities. On our part, ASUU is fully prepared to address all the technical observations made by NITDA in order to make this happen.

“Our hope is that the National Universities Commission (NUC) and other agencies of government would promptly respond to issues that concern them in the NITDA’s report to pave way for speedy migration to UTAS and spare Nigerian universities of the evil effects of the IMF/World Bank-engineered IPPIS.”

The varsity teachers regretted that the Federal Government had turned its back on the plan to set up an inter-ministerial committee to review the draft Renegotiated 2009 FGN-ASUU agreement.

The ASUU boss described as worrisome the efforts made government agents to reduce ASUU’s demands to a regime of intermittent payment of watered-down revitalisation fund and release of distorted and grossly devalued Earned Academic Allowances (EAA).

The union specifically accused the Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, of failing to follow through with the promise made during a meeting with the House of Representatives Speaker on November 19.

Part of the ASSU statement reads: “NEC was worried by the spirited efforts of government agents to reduce the demands of ASUU to a regime of intermittent payment of watered-down revitalisation fund and release of distorted and grossly devalued Earned Academic Allowances.

“ASUU shall not relent in demanding improvement in the welfare and conditions of service of our members. However, we shall resist any attempt to blackmail the union and derail our patriotic struggle for a productive university system by official propaganda founded on tokenism and crumb-sharing.

“NEC concluded that government has failed to satisfactorily address all the issues raised in the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement and subsequent MoUs and MoAs.

“However, considering the ongoing intervention and consultation efforts, NEC resolved to review the situation at a later date with a view to deciding on the next line of action.

“The minister assured us that the process of reviewing the document would be set in motion within one week from that date. Nwajiuba’s failure to fulfill a promise made in the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly is not only provocative but reminiscent of trust-deficit that has bedevilled all agreements and understandings reached with this government and those before it since 2009.”

ASUU had announced plans to embark on a strike over the federal government’s failure to meet its demands.

Apart from the EAA, ASUU list its demands to include: the review of the NUC Act to curb the proliferation of universities by state governments who are not funding the existing ones; adoption of UTAS with concurrent discontinuance of the IPPIS and distortion in salary payment.

Others are the release of accumulated promotion arrears; and the review and signing of the draft document on the Renegotiation of 2009 ASUU-FGN Agreement.

Source: the nation newspaper

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