The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities and Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational Associated Institutions will go back to work today (Monday) after the seven-day warning strike they did last week.
Their sister union, the National Association of Academic Technologists of the University, also went on a three-day strike last week.
The three unions are demonstrating against the retained salaries from their long strike in 2022.
The administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari held back their salaries by applying the policy of 'No Work, No Pay'.
However, President Bola Tinubu recently ordered the payment of the retained salaries of members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, who had also gone on a strike in 2022.
As a result, NASU, SSANU and NAAT demanded that the government pay them too, and threatened to go on strike.
During the strike last week, the striking unions met with the Federal Government but the meeting ended without an agreement.
Updating on the issue during a Zoom meeting on Sunday, the National President, Joint Action Committee of SSANU, NASU, Mr Mohammed Ibrahim, said: “The strike ends tonight, (Sunday), everyone is resuming to work on Monday, and the government has till now not acceded to our demands. No payment has been made. The government is not responding to us.”
He added that the National Executive Council of the unions would meet and discuss during the week to know the next line of action.”
Ibrahim stressed that besides demanding the payment of their retained salaries, there was the need for the Federal Government to consider renegotiating the 2009 FGN/NASU and SSANU agreements and paying N50bn earned allowances.
Also talking, National President, NAATS, Mr Ibeji Nwokoma, disclosed that the union went on strike between March and August 2022, stating that the Federal Government, through the Minister of Education, publicly announced at a stakeholders’ meeting that all university staff should be paid, saying they were surprised that the non-teaching staff were not included.
“We all went on a legitimate strike action; I want to believe something went wrong or somebody is trying to cheat us,” he said.
Also talking, the Vice-President of SSANU, Dr Salaam Abdussobur, said, “We are not a strike-happy union. The reality is the fact that generally, the FG is treating the university staff with contempt. The government is not holistic in the way it treats the university workers, and the SSANU/NASU is treated lower in the cadre. For instance, Federal Government universities do not have Governing Councils, the government is turning the Vice-Chancellors into dictators.”
