Again, Lawmakers Move to Resolve FG/ASUU Dispute

NANS opts for training of members on skills acquisition

 Udora Orizu in Abuja and Ibrahim Shuaibu in Kano

After over four hours of deliberations, the House of Representatives was able to broker a meeting between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the labour ministry and office of the accountant general of the federation yesterday over the lingering strike.

Speaker of the House, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, and his colleagues who had been meeting with the union for two weeks now had enquired from the Accountant-General and National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), if the universities’ payment systems could be re-evaluated.

While the Direct-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa said that all the three payment systems that included University Transparency and Accountability Solution, (UTAS) Integration Personnel and Information System, (IPPIS) and U3PS failed integrity test and as such could not be relied upon, the Accountant-General, Sylvia Okolieaboh offered for a meeting with ASUU to resolve the issues.

He said the issues would be resolved using the IPPIS payment solution and that adopting UTAS might prompt unwholesome request from other agencies to be paid in their own salary structure.

He also challenged ASUU to come up with any home-grown solution, assuring that the government would abide by it.

“If there are peculiarities in the university salaries system, what we need to do is to sit down with ASUU and identify them and address them in IPPS, we are willing to accept if the answer is yes, then the whole of the issues would be resolved.

“What we need to do in my own opinion is to sit down with ASUU and know what the issues are and address them inside IPPIS.

“One of the risks of adopting UTAS is that everybody will come and say give us our own salary. As we speak, the military is on IPPIS, the police is on IPPIS. They have their own peculiarities. What we need to do is sit down. IPPIS is not a perfect system. In the spirit of reconciliation, if ASUU knows any fibre that can help to resolve the issues that we have, ASUU should go ahead,” Okolieaboh said.

On his part, the NITDA DG said they were waiting for further directive from the government to continue with the testing of the solutions.

“Our interactions with ASUU started 2020. We keep identifying issues. We are always willing to continue with these engagements. We ended the last test in June 2022. “We are waiting for directive to continue. The last engagement was on the directive of the Chief of Staff to the president,” he said.

Speaking also the Director General of the Budget Office, Ben Akabueze informed the lawmakers that they were opposed to adopting multiple solutions, saying they would expensive to fund.

He said, “There is a dimension to this discussion. Acquiring and maintaining any application based on which we will pay thousands of people will cost money. “If you decide to use any of them, you need a data center and it will cost billions of naira. There has to be backup.

We are vehemently opposed to multiple solutions because of our own fiscal situation.

“It’s still government that will fund it. It doesn’t really make sense to us. Let’s determine which one is best but let’s not do multiple solutions”.

The Head of Service, Yemi Folashade-Esan, in her contribution said, “At this particular time, the country may not afford two payment platform at this time. Running two platforms will be extremely expensive at this time. If we are using UTAS or IPPIS, let’s flush it and use it.”

Also, the Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige while commending the lawmakers for the initiative, encouraged ASUU to stick with IPPIS to address their grievances.

But the President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, in quoting the University Miscellaneous Act, said Nigeria was the only country where salaries of lecturers were paid through the office of the accountant general.

Osodeke queried why NITDA refused to make available the report of the last test on UTAS, insisting that the report must be available for them to study.

He said: “We were told exactly this same thing in 2017. They all came and told us the same time. Are we really patriotic? They are paying money to foreign company per person. We have two options. Use the one we have developed.

“Is there any other country in the world where the salaries of universities are paid by the office of accountant general. No country in the world will harvest the data of their university lecturers and give to a foreign company,” he added.

In his concluding remarks, the Speaker, Gbajabiamila appealed to ASUU to interface with the Accountant General in the interest of the students, assuring that the parliament would be a witness to the agreements.

He said the report of the meeting would be ready in days for onward transmission to President Muhammadu Buhari next week.

“Let me just say I believe this would be, hopefully, the last meeting we are going to have on this matter, because from here the leadership of the House will put together our reports, our recommendations and our thoughts, and take it to Mr. President.

“I am hoping that with whatever we have done, ASUU will at least – this is an independent arm of the government – access in good faith and hopefully the government too will accept in good faith so that our children can go back to school and that is what this is all about.

“Again, let me repeat, we are running a government: nobody, no individual, no group, whether you are legislature, judiciary or whatever can be above the government or above the law.  We can make our case…and I am speaking specifically to ASUU who I know we are all with you on this.

“We did not say that because the court had given a judgment, that is the end of this conversation. In spite of the court judgment, we are still looking for solutions. We didn’t even address it here. I don’t want to address it.

“It is another third arm of the government…otherwise one could have even said the court has given judgment, I don’t know if there is a stay of execution. 

“I am also in touch with your lawyer, Mr. Falana; we still even chatted this morning so that we can all be on the same page. We are appealing to you. The judiciary has spoken, at least as of now. The executive spoke. The legislature is about to speak, together with the executive. “Everybody cannot be wrong and only one person is right. I am happy for the solution on the issue of UTAS. It is no victor, no vanquish: everybody is carried along. And if it is possible to accommodate everything that ASUU wants in UTAS, for me, that is the best way to go.

“I have the letter here from the minister; the letter is here, finishing up with the white paper and sending it back to the President for his final approval. That is the letter here. The report for UTAS, we have it here. So, we have been working according to everything that we said at our last meeting. So, really, it is firmly at the feet of ASUU. I am pleading with you; the House is pleading with you, let us put all interests aside and look at only one interest and that is the interest of our children,” he said.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) Zone “A” yesterday said it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with an NGO, Fahmeedah Vocational Training and Business Enterprises to train interested students on various skills acquisition.

NANS Zone “A” Coordinator, Ziyau’u Sarki made the disclosure while addressing a news conference in Kano.

He said the decision to sign the agreement with the NGO was in adherence to advice by the relevant agencies.

According to him, the association found it necessary to enter into the agreement with the NGO on the skills acquisition training so as to reduce redundancy among the students.

He therefore called on the federal government to as a matter of urgency to address the lingering issue to enable them return to school stressing that education remains the bedrock for any meaningful development in the society.