TheCable

The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) have threatened to embark on strike over the withheld salaries of their members.

The unions, in a letter issued on Friday by their joint action committee (JAC), said they would go on strike if the government failed to release the withheld salaries after seven days.

In 2022, the salaries of university staff members who went on strike were withheld by the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.

In October 2023, President Bola Tinubu partially ordered the release of four months of the withheld eight-month pay of all lecturers.

In the letter signed by Muhammed Ibrahim, the president of SSANU, and Peters Adeyemi, the general secretary of NASU, the unions expressed concern that the government released four months of withheld salaries to members of academic staff without extending the same gesture to non-academic staff.

“While we appreciate the federal government for paying our academic counterpart, we also deem it necessary that our members are also paid,” the joint letter reads in part.

“The various feelers we are getting from our members in the universities and inter-university centres indicate that we can no longer guarantee and be able to sustain industrial peace in the university sector.

“We, therefore, use this opportunity once again to call on the federal government to do the needful within the next seven days.

“The joint action committee of NASU and SSANU should not be held responsible should the wheel of administration and corporate governance be grounded to a halt in the University sector, as we have exercised enough patience.

“If nothing is done by the federal government to positively address this situation and respond to our previous letters to them, the members of the two unions may be forced to meet soon to take all lawful and stringent decisions on the matter.”

SSANU and NASU said they had written a letter to Femi Gbajabiamila, the chief of staff (CoS) to the president, and Tahir Mamman, the minister for education, on February 13, but received no response.

“We are shocked that two weeks after the letters had been sent and received by the appropriate quarters, the federal government has remained quiet and refused to take any step towards addressing this very sensitive issue,” the unions added.

“We like to confirm through this medium once again to the federal government that the pressure on us has intensified and we have done everything possible within our ambit to prevail on our members to maintain industrial peace and tranquillity.”