Fresh Strike Looms In Nigerian Universities As Non-Academic Staff Begin Protests

Non-academic staff of Nigerian universities will on Monday begin a three-day nationwide protest as a notice of their intention to go on an indefinite strike over the failure of the federal government to implement its agreement with them.

The agitation by the non-teaching staff is coming four months after their colleagues in the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) suspended their two-month strike.

The non-academic unions, comprising the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU), said the agreement now in contention had made them suspend their own industrial action in March last year.

According to the chairman of the Joint Action Committee of the unions, Samson Ugwoke, the protest will precede the resumption of the strike.

”We are directing our members to mobilise for a protest on 15th July to send a notice of strike to the federal government, ” he said.

The unions had embarked on a nationwide strike on December 4, 2017, following the failure of the government to address their grievances. That strike was suspended in March 2018.

The former Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, had said then that the government would source for N8 billion within five weeks to pay the striking workers.

The minister announced this as a resolution reached at a meeting on March 13, 2018.

But the unions during their protest in 2018 said the delay in the payment of Earned Allowances had become a source of discomfort and agitation by their members and a source of embarrassment for their leaders.

More details later…