Fred Esumeh
By Kingsley Abavo, Benin
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Monday in Benin, Edo State passionately appealed to Nigerians to help pressure the Federal Government to honour its agreement with the body.
ASUU, Benin Zone led by its coordinator, Fred Esumeh made the appeal in a press briefing; alleging insincerity of Government and deliberate failure to keep its promises to complete work on the draft of the ‘Re – negotiated 2009 FGN – ASUU Agreement’ within six weeks from on the 22 February, 2022.
Pointing out that if the prevailing situation in the education sector is allowed to continue, “Nigerians shall all soon have grave tales to tell; and the bright future that we all hope and yearn for will never be.”
Appealing; the Union called on Nigerians to wake up and join her to “salvage what remains of the country; by repositioning the Universities to be globally competitive and able to produce the manpower resources required, to jump – start the re – emergence as a global technological and economic power.
“This clarion call is for Government to honour its agreement with the Union.”
The Union recalled that twice it was forced to roll over its strike; first, four weeks, and eight weeks respectively which began on 14 February, 2022.
This was after all failed legitimate efforts to compel the Federal Government to honour the terms of the Memorandum of Action it signed with the Union on the 22 December, 2020.
It was to provide the Federal Government more than sufficient time to comprehensively sort out the demands by the Union.
That Nigerian Universities be emplaced at the cutting edge of research and innovation, and her scholars and academics be propelled to the frontiers of scientific and technological development; thereby improving the nation’s global relevance and competitiveness.
But contrarily, representatives of Government have continued to toy with the future of Nigerian students, the Union lament.
Such that 57 days as at ‘Monday, 11 April, 2022’ after they were forced out of school, “resolution of the outstanding issues of the deployment of the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS), and the signing and implementation of the draft re – negotiated 2009 FGN – ASUU Agreement remains at the level of mere proposal, fruitless talk, and empty assurances.”
After the initial disagreement with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) on the integrity of the software, and its re – evaluation; the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) was adjuged excellent scoring 99.3 percent by the evaluators the Union asserted.
“Yet, for obvious political and self serving considerations by the politicians at the helms of affairs, the DG of NITDA and the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy still prefer to discredit UTAS to the benefit of IPPIS.
According to the Union, the Federal Government had recently observed the IPPIS pay roll platform is vulnerable to manipulations.
“And for emphasis, this is practically impossible with UTAS.
“UTAS is an intellectual input into Nigeria software development, that any serious Government should embrace.”
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