ASSU Calls for Declaration of Public Emergency on Public Universities
ASUU to Nigerians: Don’t allow politicians destroy public varsities
NATIONAL NEWS
THE Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, yesterday, urged Nigerians to stop elected leaders bent on destroying public universities and squandering the country’s wealth.
The union also urged the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency on the poor condition of public universities to rescue the sector from outright collapse. ASSU had declared that about one trillion naira is needed for the revitalization of public universities.
The Chairperson of ASUU at the University of Ibadan, Professor Ayoola Akinwole, stated this at a press conference, held at the Large Lecture Theatre, Faculty of Arts of University of Ibadan, UI.
ASUU lamented that the government has shown that the interest of the people is not as important as theirs.
Professor Akinwole said: “If the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has been asked to call ASUU to order, who else, apart from Nigerian people, does the union ask to call the government officials to order? They have made a mess of the long-standing tradition of the committee system.
“They have turned committee formation to finding jobs for political jobbers, who submit their reports that will not be implemented by the government that appointed them. It has become so bad that the country is put on auto-run without respect for those they even employ to work for them.
“It is never too late for the government to make it an urgent point of duty to solve the problem of university education and not to think that it will just pass away. It will be getting worse if nothing is done. Problems do not get solved by propaganda, falsehood and deceit.
“The government should face the reality and declare a state of emergency on the poor condition of public universities in Nigeria and give it what is due to it. Government should stop this isolationism and embrace the holistic solution to public university education.
“Let us stop portraying students’ interests as different from those of their teachers and parents.
“It is obvious by veritable evidence that the current political leaders and administration in Nigeria are paying lip service to public education, nay, the welfare of the common people and workers.
“Must we, as Nigerians, fold our arms and keep mute while a few elected leaders, fueled by mundane inordinate ambitions squander our commonwealth on frivolities?
“If we do nothing and continue on this trajectory, there obviously would be no end to the perpetual misery in our public universities.”
Meanwhile, the Federal Government on Wednesday said that it was still waiting for the upgrade of the Universities Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS), which reportedly failed the integrity test. UTAS was developed by ASSU as an alternative to the government-supported Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) payment system. There has been a running battle between the government and ASSU over the introduction of the IPPIS.
The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa disclosed this while fielding questions from State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Council Chambers, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Recall that ASUU commenced on a one-month warning strike on February 14 over a face-off with the Federal Government which included the nonacceptance of UTAS as the payment platform to replace the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System.
The Federal Government has insisted that UTAS has failed the necessary tests that should qualify it to be used as a payment platform, but ASUU on its own had accused the government of not being ready to accept its alternative platform to IPPIS.
Asked on the position of UTAS which is one of the contentious issues that led to the ongoing ASUU strike, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami said when he received a letter from the Minister of Labor and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige requesting a review of the submission and the technical ability of the software of the system, he forwarded the request to the National Information Technology Development Agency.
According to him, “They (NITDA) conducted their own analysis, their own testing and sent same back to me, and I drafted a cover letter I forwarded to the Minister of Labour and Employment and I copied the two Ministers of Education, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, and also the office of the Accountant General of the Federation and even NUC (National University Commission).
The Minister however directed the DG of NITDA, who sat beside him to give the situation report on the matter.
Giving clarification on the position of UTAS, the NITDA DG said, “When we received the request to review, UTAS, you know, building complex system like UTAS that involves employees’ personal data, and also payment system, we have to subject it to do best practice tests before approving. Normally, when we are reviewing that kind of system, we perform three tests.
“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 Honorable 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.
“The second half of the story also, we need to find where to put that system like IPPIS we have a data center built for it. ASUU where are we going to put it? That means we need to have the data center and also that data center, we need to check to make sure it meets minimum requirements. Because if you put people’s information and the system crashes, how can you pay them a salary?
“You need to build redundancy. There are a lot of things to do. So 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.”
Reports from Vanguard with additional reports by Metro