The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) have staged a peaceful protest over the federal government’s failure to address their demands.

Speaking during the protest on Thursday in Lagos, the NASU chairman, College of Medicine, University of Lagos (CMUL), Ayantoye Bukayo, said the federal government had been so “unjust’ in the way it treated the non-teaching members of staff in universities and inter-university centres.

The two unions, operating under the Joint Action Committee (JAC), were seen displaying placards with different descriptions of their requests.

Mr Bukayo, who decried the federal government’s failure to address long-standing welfare and funding issues affecting their members, said the one-day protest was a nationwide exercise, as members of the union across the country were involved.

According to him, the contentious issues are the alleged unjust disbursement of N50 billion in earned allowances, the delay in renegotiation of the 2009 FGN and NASU/SSANU agreements, and the non-payment of two months’ salaries.

He said others were non-payment of arrears of 25 per cent and 35 per cent salary arrears and non-payment of third-party deductions of the two months’ salaries (May and June 2022).

Mr Bukayo recalled that JAC had issued a seven-day ultimatum to the government on September 15 to address its concerns and extended it to another fourteen days, which expired on Monday, October 6.

“The injustice of sharing when it comes to earned allowances for staff of universities; we have teaching and non-teaching staff in universities and inter-university centres.

“But the FG has channelled its course on how to disburse these funds in a very barbaric way by allocating 80 per cent of it to only one union—the teaching staff, which is the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)—and 20 per cent to the three other unions, including SSANU and NASU.

“We believe that this is very inappropriate, and we say no to it. We want to urge the government to do the needful; we are not a nuisance, and we are not second-class citizens in the university system. We are very important; being non-teaching staff doesn’t mean we are stupid. We know the right thing, and we urge the government to do the right thing, or we will go on a full-fledged strike,” he said.

The acting chairman of SSANU, CMUL, Aladesokun Adegbola, reiterated the need for the government to give fair and equal treatment to all members of staff of the universities.

Mr Adegbola urged the government to intensify efforts to pay the 25 per cent and 35 per cent salary arrears, describing it as money the members of staff have worked for.

“We are the ones that started this negotiation of N50 billion earned allowance, and when the money was released, the way it was shared by the National Universities Commission (NUC) is unjust—80 per cent to the teaching staff and 20 per cent to all other unions.

“The non-teaching staff, being more in number, is supposed to take a higher percentage of the money. It is expected, if not 50/50, that SSANU and other unions should at least take 60 per cent because of their numbers, compared to other unions that were given 80 per cent.

“So, it is injustice, and we are calling on the government to give us our balance of N40 billion to complete the N50 billion we negotiated in the first instance because N10 billion was initially released to us,” Mr Adegbola said.

Similarly, the national executive officer of NASU, Tunde Aderibigbe, assured the commitment of the unions toward the welfare of members’ staff, emphasising the need for equal treatment for all the unions.

Responding to the protesters, the secretary of CMUL, Olayinka Olufemi-Moses, assured that the college management would support the union’s requests and actions, which would be geared toward the welfare of staff.

(NAN)