EDUCATION: SSANU, NASU, NAAT begin five-day warning strike on Monday

Non-academic activities in universities will be paralysed for five days from tomorrow as the non-teaching staff unions comprising the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, National Association of Academic Technologists, NAAT, and Non Academic Staff Union, NASU, have threatened to commence on a warning strike over non implementation of the 2009 agreements the unions entered into with the Federal Government.Meantime, the Joint Action Committee, JAC, of the three unions have petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari over what it described as the “continued industrial unrest at Federal University of Technology, FUTA, Akure” , urging “decisive government action concerning the University’s Vice Chancellor.” JAC also wrote to the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, informing him of the resolution of the three unions to embark on the warning strike. The three university affiliate unions, in a statement in Abuja, listed ten grouse upon which they decided to declare the strike which in their letter to the minister “has become necessary to make government take necessary action to fully implement the 2009 FGN/Non-Teaching Staff Unions Agreements it freely entered into with us.” According to the statement, “The university system is challenged by poor governance and administrative lapses which need to be addressed holistically. Poor funding of our universities, shortfall in payment of staff salaries, increasing corruption in the university system.” Also listed as among the problems that required attention of the ago government was “the problem of inadequate physical infrastructure and abandoned projects which they said reduces the capacity and output of her members. Other areas that government had allegedly neglected were “the problem of lack of adequate teaching and learning facilities which have reduced the productivity of our members and the non-payment of Earned Allowances being product of the 2009 Agreement.” JAC said the issue of the Nigerian University Pension Management Commission, NUPEMCO, to resolve the problem of university staff pensions, the non implementation of the National Industrial Court, NIC, judgement on university staff schools and the non-implementation of the negotiated career structure for technologists, CONTISS 14 and 15. In the letter to Buhari, JAC said that arising from issues of serious disagreement between labour unions in the institution and the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Adebiyi Gregory Daramola, there had been continuous industrial unrest. The letter was signed by Comrades Samson C. Ugwoke, SSANU President, Sani Suleiman, President of NAAT and Chris O. Ani, President of NASU and copied to the ministers of education, labour and employment, Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission and President, Nigeria Labour Congress.