The three non academic staff unions in the nation’s universities under the auspices of Joint Action Committee have insisted that they will continue their two months seven weeks old Industrial action until the federal government pay them their earned allowances amounting to about N66 billion.
The three unions made up of Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT) and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) accused the federal government of lying to them that the N23 billion earlier released was meant for all staff of the universities when only 11 percent of the money was given to them.
The General Secretary of NASU, Comrade Peters Adeyemi, who spoke on behalf of the three unions in Abuja yesterday, said that even though the government admitted at a meeting with the unions that they were shortchanged, the have done nothing to address the issue nearly two months after.
He said the N66 billion outstanding is not a big amount that cannot be settled within a few days for a serious government that is in a hurry for national development, saying, “the government should do well by giving what belong to the non-teaching staff what belongs to them so that there will be less money to steal. When government refuses to pay workers entitlements, it unwittingly put the huge national resources in the hands of looters.”
Adeyemi, who is a Deputy President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), said the strike was forced on them by the Federal Government by its refusal to implement the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) it signed with the unions in February 2017, only to succumb to pressure from the Academic Staff Union of Universities whom he said hijacked the proposal of the three unions.
He said: “There was a time when the federal government went and constituted a committee which they called NEEDS Assessment committee and those who propelled, motivate and drove that process were members of ASUU. They manipulated the process and came up with a report where they said the non teaching staff were too many in the system.
“We had to challenge that because we said that even in developed economies of the world, there is no way the teacher can teach without the non teaching staff. It is clearly impossible to even have a student without the non teaching staff. Who is going to conduct the process of admission? “