Strike Looms In Varsities As FG Violates April Deadline Agreement With Unions

Indications emerged, yesterday, that the non-teaching staff in the universities are mounting pressure on their leadership to declare industrial dispute following the alleged Federal Government’s failure to keep to the April timeline for the implementation of the Memorandum of Action (MoA) it entered with the unions.
The union members have lamented that after about 14 months the Consequential Adjustment for the new minimum wage came into effect, the government was yet to start its implementation.
But it was reliably gathered that the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, has promised to intervene in order to avert the looming strike.
Speaking to journalists at the weekend, the President of the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU), Comrade Mohammed Haruna Ibrahim, confirmed the pressure from his members to resume strike.
According to him, “We met with government some few months ago and we had an understanding after going on strike for three weeks. A lot of pressure was put on us; a lot of persuasions and we talked with the government and saw the reason to suspend the strike because the government tried to paint the picture of being sincere and we needed to give them an opportunity to do one or two things to ensure that our demands are met.
“As you are aware, our demands are not new demands. These are things that have been lingering for eleven years. We had an agreement with the government in 2009, and till today, a lot of such issues are still lagging behind; especially things that involve some payments of our allowances.
“We saw reasons to suspend because we felt the government was sincere and the timelines given by government – not us was that by end of April most of these issues will be sorted. We still believe a miracle can happen.
“Outside that a lot of our members are agitated, we are under a lot of pressure to go back to the trenches because even when we called our members to interact with them with pressed on them to give the government a chance.
“We are hoping that government will not disappoint us and paint us like liars before our members. Where the government doesn’t meet the timeline one cannot guarantee industrial peace because we have been taken for a ride for too long.
“Out of the seven issues we tabled before government three or four have been handled. For example the issue of the visitation panel: currently the panels are all over the universities. The issue of discrepancies in our salaries is also being handled by the IPPIS committee.
“But payment of the consequential adjustments for the new national minimum wage and the allowances that are encapsulated in our agreements contained in the earned allowance; these are still things that are lagging behind and there is no end in sight, to say the least.
“While the government has attempted to address some of the problems, the ones that touch us directly- the ones that involve our pockets have not been addressed. Because of the insecurity, inflation has skyrocketed. The prices of items have changed. Our members the little they get as salaries cannot even take them home. By the time you make a few purchases, money is gone”.