Public Universities Will remain shut until the right things are done – ASUU

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said it does not mind universities remaining shut until the right things are done to guarantee the quality of learning and well-being of workers and students.

The leadership of the union at the Calabar Zone comprising nine universities in Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Abia, and Ebonyi states made their position known in a statement read at a news briefing by the Zonal Chairman, Aniekan Brown.

The statement said: “It has become imperative to engage the public, through the instrumentality of the press, to illuminate ASUU’s stance on the outstanding issues in the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) versus University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) option; and the Federal Government of Nigeria’s rather unpatriotic attempt to discredit the indigenously-developed software.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the IPPIS as a payment system is uncongenial with the modus operandi of the university system, given the peculiarities of universities; and generally untoward to the welfare of ASUU members.

“As a result of ASUU’s dogged resistance to the IPPIS, the Federal Government challenged it to evolve a credible alternative. ASUU accepted the challenge and on August 23, 2020, despite the COVID-19 restrictions and attendant difficulties, unveiled the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS). Sadly, the Federal Government changed the gear and opted to antagonize the software by raising artificial obstacles.”

The acceptance of UTAS was predicated on passing an integrity test. The release of the test result became predicated on a threat of industrial action by the union. They said the result upon the release was bridled with ignorance, inconsistencies, copyrights violations, and political colorations, as some findings were independent of the actual. In which case, despite the high percentage score recorded for UTAS, it was still adjudged to have failed the said test.”

Meanwhile, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Nsukka Zone (ASUU-NSUKKA ZONE), has called for the urgent intervention of well-meaning Nigerians in the long face-off between it and the Federal Government.

The Union noted that there is a need to salvage the country’s educational sector from collapse in order to save the future of the country.

Comrade Raphael Amokaha, the Zonal Coordinator, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Nsukka Zone (ASUU-NSUKKA ZONE), made this known on Thursday during a press conference held at Federal University Lokoja, saying that the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement was the main reason for the strike all this while.

He opined that ASUU has exercised unparallel patience and explored all avenues for a strike-free solution to the government-induced crisis in the public universities without finding a headway.

According to him, this was against the backdrop of the legendary reputation of successive Nigerian governments for not honoring agreements with ASUU.

He noted, “How else can it be explained that we have a set of leaders that pay lip service to their commitment to national development? ASUU has consistently demonstrated that it is a patriotic union.”

The zonal coordinator stated that having gone out of its way to spend from the miserable salaries of its members to develop a more robust homegrown payment platform in UTAS at no cost to the government, it was hoped it would restore faith and confidence in the educational system and also, to prove again that the challenge in the university system has nothing to do with the capacity of the lecturers but everything to do with the people charged with the responsibility of running the affairs of the country.

He noted that it would seem, with benefit of hindsight, that the insistence of the government on deploying IPPIS which was used to continuously starve and subject their members to untold hardship, stressing that decapitating their salaries arbitrarily and outright nonpayment for months despite the manifest inadequacies of the platform was a ploy to distract them from their original goal.

He asked why else the government would delay the deployment of UTAS, a more efficient, Nigerian-designed alternative, which has passed all the tests put forward by government agencies.