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Felix Ikem, Nsukka and Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri
The Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and National Association of Academic Technology (NAAT) under the auspices of Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), have joined the nationwide protest.
The national executive councils of JAC had last Friday directed its branch members to join the protest to press home demand for their earned allowance and other demands to the Federal Government.
The union members numbering over 1,000, in a peaceful protest, yesterday, in UNN, marched through Ekpo-reff Hall to Freedom Square of the campus bearing placards with different inscriptions, such as: “JAC rejects the 80 per cent and 20 per cent sharing formula for academic and non-teaching staff respectively in recent release of N25 billion for earned allowances.
“The Federal Government should release N30 billion for payment of arrears of earned allowance to non-teaching staff of Nigeria universities.
“Our members will not participate in the pension scheme or migrate since we were not carried along from the beginning.”
Briefing newsmen after the protest, UNN SSANU Chairman, Paul Eruah, said the protest was in line with directive of the National Executive Council of the non-teaching staff of public universities in the country to all member-branch to call a congress and join the protest, which started on Monday.
In a related development, NASU and SSANU under the auspices of JAC, Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO) branch, yesterday, protested at the school premises demanding N30 billion from the Federal Government as their earned allowances from 2006 till date.
The branch Chairman of NASU, Franklyn Metus, who is also the SSANU chairman, while briefing newsmen shortly after their protest disclosed that his members have rejected the 80 per cent to 20 per cent sharing formula between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and NASU.
He maintained that NASU and SSANU were betrayed by ASUU, who he said are benefitting from the earned allowances fought by the three unions by preferring the 80 to 20 per cent sharing formula.
Metus noted that the allowances were supposed to be incorporated into their salary,which he said ran into arrears, but the Federal Government, by their own agreement decided to pay in “piece meal” of which N30 billion he said was initially paid, but ASUU, without prior consultation with their union went ahead with the implementation of the 80 per cent to 20 per cent sharing formula, which gave ASUU the lion share.
