The Academic Staff Union of Universities to decide the fate of Nigerian students today

Mid last month, on the 15th of February, the academic staff union of universities (ASUU) embarked on a one-month warning strike stating the federal government's failure to meet its demand as the reason to go on strike. The demands include renegotiation of the ASUU/FG 2009 agreement and the deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) to replace the government's "mandated" Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS). The federal government on the other hand claimed that ASUU was not right to go on strike as some meetings and negotiations are going on underground and that they did not inform them through the appropriate channel. Recently, the general assembly of the vice-chancellors advised the federal government to embrace dialogue. This was said at the 80th Meeting held on the 10th of March 2022 which was dispensed in a communique contained that was released after the meeting.

On the adoption of university transparency and accountability solution (UTAS) as its payment system.

The federal government have claimed that UTAS did not pass the integrity test. Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy disclosed that he transmitted a letter from Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Employment, seeking a review of the proposal and the technical competence of the system, to NITDA. “They (NITDA) conducted their analyses, their own testing and sent same back to me, and I drafted a cover letter, which I forwarded to the Minister of Labour and Employment and I copied the two Ministers of Education and the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, and also the office of the accountant-General of the Federation and even the National Universities Commission,” he stated.

Pantami then asked the DG of NITDA to describe the present status of things between the Federal Government and ASUU, who was seated next to him.

Inuwa said, “When we received the request to review UTAS, you know, building complex system like UTAS that involves employees’ data and also payment system, we had to subject it to do best practice tests before approving. Normally, when we are reviewing that kind of system, we perform three tests.

“Firstly, because when you’re building a system, it’s not just about the technology, you need to consider the people that will use this system and the process. If you don’t align people, processes and technology, you will never get results. No matter how good the technology is, if people don’t understand how to use it, they won’t use it. And if the process is different from the way the people work, they won’t use it. So, that is a process of building technology.

“First, you need to get the business requirement. What do you want to achieve? So, it’s not the technology that will come first, it is the business requirement; what do you want to achieve, then you need to identify the capabilities you need to achieve that your business objective.”

According to Inuwa, the agency determined capability based on the technology ASUU sought to introduce and the kind of individuals who would run it.

He said since a piece of technology was only a means to an end, it made no sense to acquire it before knowing what to do with it, else “it will be useless.”

According to him, NITDA also ran stress tests.

The NITDA said, “So, we did all these three tests with them and the system couldn’t pass. We wrote the reports and submitted them back to the honourable minister, which he forwarded to all relevant institutions, including ASUU. As we speak now, ASUU is working on 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.

“The second half of the story is that we need to find where to put that system. For the IPPIS, we have a data centre built for it. ASUU, where are we going to put UTAS? That means we need to have the data centre and also check to ensure that it meets the minimum requirement. Because if you put people’s information and the system crashes, how can you pay them salaries?

“You need to build redundancy. There are a lot of things to do. But as we speak, they’re trying to fix all the issues we highlighted with the system. Then when we finish that, we need to look at the second half of the story, getting where to install it.”

ASSU’s stance on UTAS

Pantami was accused by ASUU of attempting to exact retribution over the professorship he was granted by the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, which the union rejected.

"What the minister stated, if true, can best be regarded as vengeance against ASUU for the FUTO “fraudfessorship," ASUU President Emmanuel Osodeke said. According to the NITDA study, UTAS received a score of more than 80% on technical evaluation and more than 85% on end user assessment. Can we argue that 80% and 85% of the people are failures?

The minister's elevation to the professorship cadre was pronounced "illegal" by the union following its National Executive Council meeting in Lagos. Adoption of UTAS by the FG is one of the requirements of ASUU to call off the strike.

What will happen today

The ASSU national executive council (NEC) meeting will hold today at the University of Abuja as revealed by the ASUU chairman Prof. Emmanuel Osodoke. At the NEC meeting, the majority of the opinion is what will be followed; however, can the majority decide to call off the strike? This is unlikely as they have already gone on a 1-month warning strike without achieving their goal. If they do call off the strike they will be seen as a dog biting without teeth with the 4 weeks of the student just wasted without even them achieving their goal. What then is the essence of the strike? ASUU may resolve to go on indefinite strike, this is more likely as they claimed that the Federal government are not showing interest in public universities.

The student on the other hand will hope that ASUU reaches an agreement to call the strike off as they are the ones suffering from the prolonged strike.