NITDA Delaying Deployment Of UTAS Bcos Of Our Position On Pantami – ASUU

The conflict between the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Nigerian government continues as the lecturers’ union has accused the Nigerian government, particularly the National Information Technology and Development Agency (NITDA), of deliberately frustrating resolution efforts.

The Lagos Zone of ASUU, in a press statement issued on Tuesday, after a meeting held at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Ogun State, specifically accused NITDA of deliberately misinforming the public over the integrity of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) that it developed to replace the government’s Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) as a payment platform.

ASUU said certain utterances by NITDA and some other unidentified government officials are parts of what it described as a deliberate plot to ensure the elongation of the strike.

The statement, which was signed by the chairman of ASUU in the zone, Adelaja Odukoya, an associate professor at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, added that its opposition to the appointment of the minister of communications and digital economy as a professor by a university is being used as a reason for vendetta.

It accused the NITDA DG, Kashifu Inuwa, and Mr Pantami of politicising the process, saying the development is not unconnected to the union’s position on Mr Pantami’s professorship.

The statement reads in part; “We are aware that the position of the DG NITDA is not consistent with the enthusiasm of the technical team from the agency he superintends over and the DG is unduly politicising the entire process to the disadvantage of the country, possibly in the interest of the minister for communication and digital economy.

ASUU, therefore, called on the public to call Mr Inuwa to order “on the point of integrity not to play politics and vendetta [Pantamize] with the future of Nigeria and that of our public universities as national treasures…”

“We are convinced that the DG of NITDA is only out to carry out the hatchet job of a minister whose professorial fraud was challenged by our union,” ASUU alleged.”