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ASUU Strike: Government explains how UTAS system fails integrity tests

Prof. Isa Ali Pantami, Honourable Minister for Communications and Digital Economy (l) and Malam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE, Director-General of NITDA

*When you’re building a system, it is 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, process and technology, you will never get result, says the Federal Government of Nigeria

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

Amid the ongoing industrial dispute between the parties over certain outstanding issues, the Federal government, again, has insisted that the Universities Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) developed by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) as an alternative to its controversial IPPIS has failed the necessary tests of integrity.

ConsumerConnect reports the Nigerian Government Wednesday, March 9, 2022, explained that the required integrity tests could have qualified software to be used as a payment platform for University lecturers in the country.

However, the government restated that it is still awaiting ASUU to enroll on the IPPIS payment platform.

Malam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE, Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) disclosed this development to State House correspondents Wednesday after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice-President (Prof.) Yemi Osinbajo in the Council Chambers, Presidential Villa, Abuja, FCT.

On the government’s assessment of UTAS, which is one of the contentious issues over which ASUU on strike currently, Prof. Isa Ali Pantami, Honourable Minister for Communications and Digital Economy,  said when he received a letter from Sen. Dr. Chris Ngige, Honourable Minister for  Labour and Employment, requesting a review of the submission and the technical ability of the UTAS software, he forwarded it to NITDA.

Prof. Pantami stated: “They (NITDA) conducted their own analysis, their own testing and sent same back to me, and I drafted a cover letter I forwarded to the Minister of Labour and Employment and I copied the two Ministers of Education as well as Finance, Budget and National Planning, the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and National Universities Commission (NUC).

System is all about people, process and technology ─NITDA Director-General

In his clarification of how the software analysis was done, the NITDA Director-General said: “When we received the request to review UTAS, you know, building complex system like UTAS that involves employees’ personal data and also payment system, we have to subject it to the best practice tests before approving.

“Normally, when we are reviewing that kind of system, we perform three tests.

Abdullahi further stated: “First, because when you’re building 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, process and technology, you will never get result. “No matter how good the technology is, if the people don’t understand how to use it, they won’t use it.

“And if the process is different from the way the people work, they won’t use it. So, that is a process of building technology.”

According to him, “you need to get the business requirement. What do you want to achieve?

“So, it’s not the technology that will come first, it is the business requirement; what do you want to achieve?

“Then, you need to identify the capabilities you need to achieve that is your business objective.”

Abdullahi also said: “Part of the capability is the technology you need to bring in and the people that will operate the technology before you start thinking of the technology, because technology is always a tool that will help you to achieve an objective or to do your work.

“If you bring the tool before knowing what to do with it, it will be useless.

“So, when they came, we said fine, we will do user acceptance test.

“ASUU you’ve built this system, but you are not the one that will use it. There are people in bursary and all the finance that will use this system. “We need to do 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.

The NITDA Chief noted: “Second, we said we’ll do vulnerability test on 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.

He as well explained: “And also, we need to do stress test. You can build a system on your laptop or on a small computer, use it but when you put so many data it will crash.

“We need to do the stress test to make sure that the system can do.

“Then also you need to have a data centre where you need to put that system because just having a system without the data centre will not operate.

“We did all these three tests with them. And the system couldn’t pass.

“We wrote the report and submitted it back to the Honourable 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.

The Director-General of NITDA noted: “The second half of the story; 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; we need to ensure it meets the minimum requirements.

“Because if you put people’s information and the system crashes, how can you pay their salaries?

According to him, “you need to build redundancy. There are a lot of things to do but as we speak. “They’re trying to fix all the issues we highlighted with the system.”

He added: “When we finish that, we need to look at the second half of the story, getting where to install it.”

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