NEC, therefore, calls on the government to as a matter of urgency release the already appropriated funds for payment of Earned Allowances to our members to avert any industrial disharmony in the university system”.
By Ife Osemedua
365Daily – The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) is set to embark on a one-week nationwide warning strike over the ‘selective payment’ of parts of the university workers’ withheld salaries.
This was agreed by the National Executive Council (NEC) of the union at its meeting held on Monday at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) following the expiration of the one-week ultimatum issued last week by the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of SSANU and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) for the government to pay its members.
President Bola Tinubu had ordered the payment of four months withheld salaries of members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), leaving out SSANU and NASU.
Both unions described the development as unfair and selective.
“If nothing is done by the Federal Government to positively address this situation and respond to our previous letters to them, the members of the two unions may be forced to meet soon to take all lawful and stringent decisions on the matter,” a statement by SSANU read.
In 2022, two months after ASUU commenced a nationwide strike, SSANU and NASU embarked on nationwide industrial action that further crippled activities across the campuses to protest the government’s failure to fulfil its promises to the workers and what they described as gross underfunding of the universities.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari then invoked a ‘No Work, No Pay’ policy and withheld the workers’ salaries. But in October, 2023, President Tinubu announced that his government would pay four months of the withheld salaries to members of ASUU, without addressing members of the other unions.
SSANU is also protesting the non-implementation of the 25 and 35 per cent salary increases announced by the government last year.
It stated, “Over six months after, this wage award has not been implemented in the monthly salaries of our members even though the sum of N100 billion naira was provided for in the budget for that purpose.”
“NEC also demands that the government should expedite action on the renegotiation of the new national minimum wage as the current national minimum wage has completely been made useless by the hyperinflation currently ravaging the country,” the union wrote.
It further stated, “NEC in session noted with dismay the continued delay by the government, despite several letters and correspondences and interactions written to it to pay our members the outstanding Earned Allowances. We are aware that the sum of N50 billion was appropriated in the 2023 budget for this purpose.
“NEC, therefore, calls on the government to as a matter of urgency release the already appropriated funds for payment of Earned Allowances to our members to avert any industrial disharmony in the university system”.