News Investigators/ The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) have staged a peaceful protest over the Federal Government’s failure to address their demands.
Speaking during the protest on Thursday in Lagos, the NASU Chairman, College of Medicine, University of Lagos (CMUL), Ayantoye Bukayo, said the Federal Government had been so “unjust’ in the way it treated the non-teacching members of staff in universities and inter-university centres.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the two unions, operating under the Joint Action Committee (JAC), are seen displaying placards with different descriptions of their requests.
Mr Bukayo, who decried the Federal Government’s failure to address long-standing welfare and funding issues affecting their members, said the one-day protest was a nationwide exercise as members of the union across the country were involved.
According to him, the contentious issues are the alleged unjust disbursement of N50 billion Earned Allowances, delay in renegotiation of the 2009 FGN and NASU/SSANU Agreements and non-payment of outstanding two months salaries.
Others, he said, were non-payment of arrears of 25 per cent and 35 per cent salary arrears, and non-payment of third-party deductions of the two months salaries (May and June, 2022).
He recalled that JAC had issued a seven-day ultimatum to the government on Sept.15 to address its concerns and extended it to another fourteen days, which expired on Monday, Oct. 6.
“The injustice of sharing when it comes to earned allowances to staff of universities; we have teaching and non-teacching staff in universities and inter-university centres.
“But the FG has channeled its course on how to disburse these funds in a very barbaric way by allocating 80 per cent of it to only one union – the teaching staff, which is the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and 20 per cent to the three other unions including SSANU and NASU.
“We believe that this is very inappropriate and we say no to it.
“We want to urge the government to do the needful; we are not nuisance, we are not second class citizens in the university system.
“We are very important, being non-teacching staff doesn’t mean we are stupid, we know the right thing and we urge the government to do the right thing or we will go on a full fleshed strike,” he said.
Contributing, the Acting Chairman, SSANU, CMUL, Mr Aladesokun Adegbola, reiterated the need for the government to give fair and equal treatment to all members staff of the universities.
Adegbola urged the government to intensify efforts to pay the 25 per cent and 35 per cent salary arrears, describing it as money the members staff have worked for.
“We are the ones that started this negotiation of N50 billion earned allowance, and when the money was released, the way it was shared by the National Universities Commission (NUC) is unjust – 80 per cent to the teaching staff and 20 per cent to all other unions.
“The non-teacching staff, being more in number, is supposed to take higher percentage of the money.
“It is expected, if not 50/50, SSANU and other unions should at least take 60 per cent because of their numbers when compared to other union that was given 80 per cent.
“So, it is injustice, and we calling on the government to give us our balance of N40 billion to complete the N50 billion we negotiated in the first instance, because N10 billion was initially released to us,” Adegbola said.
Similarly, the National Executive Officer, NASU, Mr Aderibigbe Tunde, assured commitment of the unions toward welfare of members staff, emphasising need for equal treatment to all the unions.
“Let the government treat all the four unions in the university equally; because that’s where the problem is actually coming from. There should be no first class or second class union.
“When you call for meeting of the unions, and you place one particular union far ahead of other unions that not fair.
“The problem is from the government; treat all these unions equally and there would be peace in the system,” Tunde said.
Responding to the protesters, the Secretary, CMUL, Dr Olayinka Olufemi-Moses, assured support of the college management to the union’s requests and action, which would be geared toward welfare of staff.
Olufemi-Moses, who said that the protest was a development in the right direction, urged the protesters to maintain optimum peace in the course of the protest.
NAN
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