Total Lock Down Of Varsities Looms As SSANU, NASU ‘Issues Ultimatum’ To FG Ahead Strike

The total grounding of Nigerian universities seems inevitable as non-academic staff have Freshly threatened to embark on a two–week initial industrial action should the government fail to meet their demands by March 27.

The teaching staff under the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) are already in the second of their three-month initial strike.ASUU had also started its strike with an initial four weeks on February 14th and extended it by two months when meetings with the government yielded no positive results.

Read also: ASUU Strike: State-Owned Varsities React Against Exclusion In Negotiations With Government

University Technology Staff Commences Warning Strike

A letter addressed to the office of the minister of labour and employment, Chris Ngige, the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union of Allied and Educational Institutions (NASU) accused the government of insincerity in its implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and Memorandum of Action (MoA) reached with the government in October 2020 and February 2021 respectively.

The letter, written at the end of a meeting held on Wednesday to appraise the implementation of the agreements it had with the government, and signed by Peters Adeyemi, General Secretary, NASU and Mohammed Ibrahim National President, SSANU, gave the Nigerian government up till March 27 to address its demands or face an initial two-weeks strike.

Parts of the statement reads: “In view of this, the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of NASU and SSANU arising from its meeting is hereby using this opportunity through your exalted office to give the Federal Government up to Sunday, 27th March, 2022 to do the needful in respect of our members’ agitations, failing which we would have no other option than to direct our members in the Universities and Inter university Centres in Nigeria to proceed on 2 weeks warning strike in the first instance to drive home demands of our members in the Universities and Inter-University Centres.

The national vice president of SSANU, Abdussobur Salaam, had listed the items in the said agreement to include the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement, payment of earned allowances, usurpation of non-academic career positions by vice-chancellors, inclusion of university staff school into the university community, non-payment of minimum wage arrears, and funding of state universities.