University Workers Begin Strike On Monday

The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities and Non-Academic Staff Union have directed their members to commence a nationwide protest with effect from Monday, July 2019 over alleged breach of the agreement by the Federal Government.

The unions were aggrieved by the exclusion of their members from the administration of the National University Pension Company solely operated by the Academic Staff Union of Universities.

Other grievances included the preferential treatment extended to ASUU by the Federal Government as seen in the allocation of 80 per cent of funds released to them as earned allowances, while the non-academic staff unions got the remaining 20 percent.

The resolutions of the unions were reached after the meeting of their Joint Action Committee held in Abuja on Friday.

While briefing journalists on the resolutions, President of SSANU, Samson Ugwoke, said the unions rejected the 20 per cent earned allowance allocated to the three nonteaching unions.

He, therefore, called on the Federal Government to release N30 billion to the non-teaching staff as earned allowance for the period of 2009 to 2016.

“We call and demand that the government should release as a matter of urgency, N30 billion for nonteaching staff. JAC has approved protests from the branches, protests at the zonal levels of our unions and mother of all protests in Abuja for three days before a deadline is given to the government for the mother of all strikes that will follow. The protest will commence on Monday, July 15, 2019,” Ugwoke threatened.

While stressing that the protest was aimed at sending a notice of strike to the Federal Government, he called on members to ensure full compliance with the directive in order to show its relevance to the university system.

The SSANU President said, “The recent sharing of money where the money collected from the ministry of education signed by the director of tertiary education, allocating 80 per cent of the money to ASUU and only 20 per cent to the three non-teaching staff unions is not acceptable to us.

“We reject in total the 20 per cent allocated to our members; rather, we demand from the Federal Government the sum of N30 billion as part of the earned allowance of non-teaching staff from 2009 to 2016. We call on government to hasten the audit of university earned allowances so that we will know how much is paid to who and how much remains.

“The way and manner the money is being shared contrary to any known accounting procedure are against any known international best practice; it should be condemned by all, it is rather a fraud. This house calls it a fraud and calls for investigation.”