Scrap NITDA Now Over UTAS Failure , ASUU Tells FG

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has called on the federal government to scrap the National Information Development Agency (NITDA) over its failure to implement the union’s University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS).

The Sokoto Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Jamilu Shehu, while addressing journalists in Katsina Wednesday, said the agency should be disbanded with immediate effect.

The Sokoto Zonal office of ASUU comprises Umaru Musa Yar’Adua University, Katsina; Usmanu Danfodio University, Sokoto; Kebbi State University of Science and Technology, Aliero; Sokoto State University, Sokoto, and Federal University, Dutsinma.

He reiterated that NITDA had violated its basic mandate of seeing to the birth of the union’s homegrown software and its deployment in the nation’s public universities.

He added that the failure of the federal government’s agency to accept UTAS has revealed that it lacks the capacity and drive to deliver its mandate, “and is incapable of promoting homegrown solutions”.

 “It also shows that the agency’s usefulness cannot be ascertained and ASUU calls on the federal government to scrap it with immediate effect or in the least reconstitute it with more clear and cogent mandates,” he added.

According to Shehu, for UTAS to score 99.3 per cent during the test-run assessment, is good enough to warrant an issuance of certificate of compliance.

The ASUU zonal coordinator urged Nigerians to disregard what he described as unjustifiable propaganda by NITDA on the status of UTAS integrity test.