• May declare strike indefinite if govt fails to act
The stage appears set for another round of crisis in the tertiary education sub-sector as members of the Senior Staff Union of Universities (SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) warm up for a showdown with the Federal Government over failure to meet outstanding demands.

Already, the National Executive Council (NEC) of SSANU has approved a one-week nationwide warning strike to protest the alleged ‘selective payment’ of parts of university workers’ withheld salaries.

Last week, the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of SSANU and NASU issued a one-week ultimatum for the government to pay its members or risk another round of industrial crisis in the universities.
However, at the end of the ultimatum last weekend, SSANU’s NEC approved a warning strike at its meeting held at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA).

The union, in a statement, said if nothing is done by the Federal Government to positively address the situation and respond to its previous letters, they may be forced to make lawful and stringent decisions on the matter.

One of the major demands of the two unions is the payment of members’ withheld salaries during the prolonged strike in 2022. Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) were recently paid four out of the seven–and–half–months of the withheld salaries as directed by President Bola Tinubu, a development both SSANU and NASU described as unfair and selective.

Two months after ASUU commenced a nationwide strike in 2022, both SSANU and NASU joined the nationwide strike that further crippled activities across the campuses.

The action was to protest the government’s failure to fulfil its promises to them as well as the gross underfunding of the universities.

As the strike progressed, the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari invoked a ‘no work, no pay’ policy and withheld the workers’ salaries.

However, last October, Tinubu announced that his government would pay four months out of the withheld salaries to university teachers, raising concerns about the fate of members of other unions.

The national vice president of the union, Abdussobur Salaam, in an interview with The Guardian, accused the Federal Government of bias in the payment of the withheld salaries.

He wondered why the government would single out a union out of others whose members’ salaries were withheld.

Salaam warned that the president’s directive, if not reviewed to include SSANU and other unions, could be a recipe for disaster.

He also protested the non-implementation of the 25 and 35 per cent salary wage award announced by the government last year, alleging that about N100 billion was provided in the budget for that purpose.

Besides, Salaam called on the government to expedite action on the renegotiation of the new national minimum wage, saying the current one has been made useless by the hyperinflation currently ravaging the country.

He also asked the government to reconstitute a committee to continue the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement it had with the union.

He said: “Apart from the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement, university vice-chancellors have continued to defy a court order declaring that teachers of universities’ staff schools are integral members of the university community and should be treated as such.”

He added that the government has only paid less than N8 billion of the N30 billion it agreed upon.

“The memorandum of understanding we had was that the renegotiation would be concluded within six weeks and that was as far back as February 2021. But three years after, nothing has been done,” Salaam said.

Despite spending over N6 trillion on education in the last eight years of former President Mohammadu Buhari’s administration, the sector still battles inadequate funding, deplorable infrastructure, low remuneration of teachers and non-implementation of N30, 000 minimum wage in some states, among others.

The nation’s education system is bedevilled by problems, a situation that has pitched the Federal Government against the various workers’ unions in the institutions. Agreements have been made; promises have been broken and university education has been left to haemorrhage.

Each time the union goes on strike, Nigeria’s tertiary education suffers in human development, research, science, and technology.

Worried by recent developments, stakeholders have appealed to the Federal Government to dialogue with the aggrieved unions, to address the unresolved issues in the interest of peace.