Strike: Academic activities disrupted in UniAbuja

Academic activities were on Monday temporarily disrupted in  University of Abuja as the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) commenced a seven-day warning strike.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the protesting workers blocked the entrance to the university, preventing students and others from going inside.

Mr Nureden Yusuf, SSANU Branch Chairman while addressing newsmen said the strike was to protest their four months withheld salaries.

According to Yusuf, the union were on strike to draw the attention of the government to the state of the universities.

“You may recall that one of the contentious issues why we went on strike in 2022 was that of the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement.

“That agreement ought to be renegotiated every three years and now we are in 2024, that is fourteen years after the last agreement, it is yet to be renegotiated.

“Also, we are talking about withheld salaries which President Bola Tinubu in Oct,. 2023 gracefully agreed that it should be paid to us.

“Our counterparts in Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had been paid their four months salaries, but, we are yet to receive our salaries.

“NASU and SSANU are unions of professionals. We oil the wheel of the university system,” he said.

According to Yusuf, apart from teaching, there were others activities carried out by SSANU and NASU members in the university system.

Yusuf said that the unions would be shutting down all essential services including security unit, healthcare services, water supply, transportation unit, electricity.

Also, Mrs Sadiya Hassan, Chairperson of NASU, University of Abuja, branch, said that it was imperative that the Federal Government paid the four months withheld salaries to the unions.

According to her, it was discriminatory and unacceptable for NASU and SSANU to be left out in the payment of the four months withheld salaries.

“We are professionals in our different fields that we chose to be in the non teaching sector,’ she said.

Hassan urged the federal government to do the needful for the workers to return to their duty posts.