Follow Us on Google
• Demands withheld 4 months salaries
From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
As Nigeria marks her 63rd independence anniversary, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has called on the Minister of Labour and Employment, as well as that of education to pay more attention to the needs of workers in the education sector.
Both governors have ‘hit the bed sleeping’ rather than ‘hitting the ground running’, according to SSANU President, Mohammed Ibrahim, in a message to commemorate Independence Day.
Ibrahim also called on the Federal Government to release the four months withheld salaries of members of the union as well as the release of the N50 billion earned allowances captured in the 2023 budget.
In 2022, the four university-based unions went on a strike that lasted for nearly eight months, and the Federal Government made the decision to stop paying the union members’ salaries.
Ibrahim, in the message said: “The refusal to pay the withheld salary is anti-labour, inhuman because if it is claimed that we went on strike, our strike was legal and it followed all due processes and protocols.
“We did not wake up to go on strike, we wrote and we were discussing and it was because we got stampeded and the government withdrew from our discussions and we were pushed to the wall and the labour laws also gives us the right to withdraw our services, this was exactly what we did. We didn’t break anybody’s head, we didn’t violate any law.
“Our money has to be released for peace to reign. We are aware President Bola Ahmed Tinubu did instruct his ministers to hit the ground running and we have seen one or two, positively or negatively, they have hit the ground running. Even the greatest of Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike’s critics cannot say he has not hit the ground running. Even the greatest of the critics of Minister of Works, David Umahi, cannot say he has not hit the ground running but our ministers of education and labour, have hit the bed sleeping because the only way members of SSANU will understand they have hit the ground running is to release our withheld salaries and also fast track the release of this reviewed salaries.
“Hitting the ground running is not only semantics but it is actionable. We have written to congratulate both the ministers of Education and Labour. If truly they want to hit the ground running, we expected by now they should have met the university based unions but we realise there is a new style of governance of only meeting with people whom they are afraid of.
“We are not also reluctant or afraid of making trouble but our strategy in SSANU is different and because we are people who think before we act and that is why we only raise our voices when the kneel of the antagonists is on our neck.”
Ibrahim also requested the prompt approval and payment of a realistic salary award as a palliative to lessen the impact of the subsidy’s elimination on university employees
“This, if done, and in addition to what has been approved, will give us some relief, will make us understand and will convince us to do our work,” he said.
