ASUU Challenges Minister, NITDA to Public Debate on UTAS
Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
The leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has said it was ready to engage the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Prof. Isah Patami and the Director General of the Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency, in a public debate over the integrity of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) salary payment platform.
ASUU said their demand was neccessitated by the need to put the records straight on the grounds already covered in the efforts to get government to deploy UTAS as a suitable payment system in our university system.
In another development, the union’s National Executive Committee (NEC) met last night to decide on the next line of action on its 4-week warning strike which ends today.
A credible source told THISDAY last night that a majority of ASUU chapters, had earlier voted to continue the strike since the government had not done much to meet their demands.
According to the source, NEC meeting was to consider the position of the branches and come up with a decision that would be made public today.
In the statement signed by ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, the union said: “The DG of NITDA and the Minister superintending over the agency are challenged to a public discussion on any of the national media to put all matters to rest for the benefits of our students, union members and the general public.”
ASUU said it was not true that UTAS, has failed the integrity test conducted by NITDA as claimed by the NITDA DG and the minister, when they spoke to journalists shortly after the Federal Executive Council meeting last week.
It said from the result of the integrity test given by NITDA Technical Team, UTAS scored 529 of the 687 test areas carried, noting that there were 156 queries raised by the technical team on UTAS with just two cautions.
The union then wondered how the rating of UTAS, which it placed at 77 per cent would be described as failure by the Minister.
ASUU, however, said there were some observations and questions raised by the NITDA’s technical team for which the UTAS team would provide answers to.
Osodeke told THISDAY last week, that the emergency meeting of the national executive committee of ASUU would be held to decide on the offers from government.
On the new commitments made by federal government to review the salaries and conditions of services of the lecturers within six weeks, the ASUU president said such pledges had been made several times before without fulfilment.
“All they did was the same promises they have been giving all along, there is nothing new in their offer. We believe that something must be done to show some measure of commitment.They have said that more than four times, what is the difference between this one and others.
“When we met with the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, didn’t he give the same deadline? Did they do anything? They have done that over and over again and nothing happened, unless you say that this time something will change.
“Our members will not believe it because they heard it so many times. All these MoU and MoA, have been signed so many times and nothing was done. So, our members will not believe them. Our members will decide on the next line of action, “ he said.
