Strike: Federal Govt Misleading Nigerians on UTAS - ASUU

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 The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU has disclosed that the federal government is misleading Nigerians on the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) of the union. 

This comes about after the Federal Government revealed over its recent proclamation that UTAS  has failed integrity test.

President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, explained to journalists before the National Executive Council meeting which held at its National Secretariat in University of Abuja campus that the User Acceptance Test (UAT) and Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Test (VAPT) on the UTAS was still ongoing.

Osodeke cautioned the Director-General of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, to stop making “comments that are capable of jeopardising the joint ongoing testing of UTAS between the NITDA Technical Team and its counterpart in the union”.

The union leader warned that if the NITDA boss continued to make comments on UTAS, it would have no choice but to demand that the NITDA Technical Report on UTAS and ASUU’s response be made public in order to shed more light on the ongoing controversies without further waste of time.

Findings by our correspondent revealed that there were clear indications that the union may embark on an indefinite strike after the end of its one-month warning strike declared on February 14.

A senior NEC member of the union, who doesn’t want his in print, said there had been no breakthrough in negotiations with the Federal Government through the Minister of Labour and Employment.

According to the official, what the government had offered during those meetings were mere promises which ASUU members are not convinced about, saying there were no concrete offers from the government to convince the union from calling off the strike.

”We are holding this NEC meeting to decide whether to declare an indefinite strike after the end of our one-month warning strike. But most likely, we may embark on an indefinite strike,” the official said.

Speaking also, ASUU President said, “Of particular concern to us is the statement credited to both the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy and Director General, NITDA to the effect that UTAS has failed the integrity test.

“Let us put it on record that an integrity test was carried out by NITDA on 10th August, 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% in User Acceptance Test (UAT).

“However, 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 were cautioned.

”Taking this report on its face value, the percentage score is 77%. The question that arises from this is can 77% in any known fair evaluation system be categorized as failure? Suffice it to say here that some observations and questions were raised by NITDA to which UTAS technical team has to provide clarification.”

The meeting was still ongoing as at the time of this report.