‘Pantami Seeking Vengeance’ — ASUU Attacks Minister Over NITDA’s Rejection Of Its Payment Platform

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has expressed its dissatisfaction with the result of the platform integrity test carried out by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) on ASUU’s proposed payment platform, Universities Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS).

NITDA had rejected the payment platform on the grounds that it failed to pass the required integrity test.

The President of ASUU, Emmanuel Osodeke, said the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, was merely seeking vengeance after ASUU disputed his professorship received from the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO).

“What the minister said, if true, can best be regarded as vengeance against ASUU for the FUTO ‘fraudfessorship’. The report by the NITDA showed that UTAS scored more than 80 percent on technical assessment and more than 85 percent on end-user assessment. Can we say that 80 percent and 85 percent are failures?” he said.

THE WHISTLER had reported ASUU’s nullification of the minister’s promotion to the professorship cadre, describing it as “illegal” during its National Executive Council meeting in Lagos.

But the Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, declared that UTAS did not pass the integrity test it was subjected to while speaking to 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.

Osodeke however, said the result that the NITDA DG announced was false, insisting that UTAS scored above 80% in two categories.

While answering questions on the government’s thoughts on UTAS, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, said that when he received a letter from the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, requesting a review of the submission and the technical ability of the system, he forwarded the request to NITDA.

“They (NITDA) conducted their analyses, their own testing and sent same back to me, and I drafted a cover letter, which I forwarded to the Minister of Labour and Employment and I copied the two Ministers of Education and the Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, and also the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and even the National Universities Commission,” he explained.

From there, he directed the DG of NITDA, who was seated next to him, to shed more light on the current state of affairs between the Federal Government and ASUU.

The NITDA DG said, “When we received the request to review UTAS, you know, building a complex system like UTAS that involves employees’ personal data, and also payment system, we have to subject it to best practice tests before approving. Normally, when we are reviewing that kind of system, we perform three tests.

“Firstly, because when you’re building a system, it’s not just about the technology, you need to consider the people that will use this system and the process. If you don’t align people, processes, and technology, you will never get results,” Inuwa said.

The DG explained that the integrity test is performed in three stages, the user acceptance test, the vulnerability test, and the stress test.

“So when they came, we said okay, fine, we will do a user acceptance test, ASUU you’ve built this system, but you are not the one that will use the system.

“There are people in Bursary and all the finance that will use this system. So we need to do a user acceptance test with them, let them come show them the system, let them see if it can help them to do the work there.

“Secondly, we said we’ll do a vulnerability test to test the security integrity of the system. Because if there is vulnerability, people can hack it, can change and it involves financial transactions. Adding zero means a lot. So we say we need to do that.

“And also we need to do a stress test. You can build a system on your laptop or a small computer, use it but when you put so much data it will crash, we need to do the stress test to make sure that system can do it,” he explained.

He said UTAS was unable to pass the tests and that ASUU is now working to rectify the errors in the system.

“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,” he declared.

Inuwa added that following the tests, there has to be a data center to house the system otherwise it would be unable to operate properly.

“The second half of the story also, we need to find where to put that system like IPPIS. We have a data centre built for it. ASUU where are we going to put it?

“That means we need to have the data centre and we also 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?” he said.