Non-Academic Staff

Gbenro Adesina/Ibadan

Members of the non-academic staff in the University of Ibadan, UI, today commenced a five day strike action to demand for N30b Earned Allowance from the Federal Government.

The striking staff members of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, and the Non-Academic Staff Union, NASU are also showing their displeasure over the government’s refusal to obey court judgment on the Institution’s staff school’s salaries.

Specifically, the workers demanded that the government should release N30b Earned Allowance of non-teaching staff within the period of 2009 to 2016.

According to a statement signed by Sunday O. Akinpelu, Secretary of NASU in UI, the union will gather by 7am at Niser Car Park each day, where they will commence protest and walk round the campus to protest injustice against them.

The protest held today was, however, peaceful as other members of the community were not harassed and intimidated or prevented from carrying out their statutory responsibilities.

The protest did not affect academic activities as classes were held as slated in the timetables of each department.

Speaking, President of Joint Action Committee, Comrade Samson Ugwuoke, who called on the non-academic staff to ensure full compliance with the strike’s directive to prove its relevance to the university system pointed out that the protest was aimed at sending a notice of strike to the Federal Government.

According to him, “The recent sharing of money where the money collected from the Ministry of Education signed by the Director of tertiary education, allocating 80 percent of the money to ASUU and only 20 percent to the three non-teaching staff unions is not acceptable to us. We reject in total the 20 percent allocated to our members, rather we demand from the Federal Government the sum of N30 billion as part of the earned allowance of non-teaching staff from 2009 to 2016 and we call on government to hasten the audit of University Earned Allowances so that we will know how much is paid to who and how much remains. The way and manner the money is being shared contrary to any known accounting procedure, any known international best practice should be condemned by all. It is rather a fraud. This house calls it a fraud and calls for investigation”.

He concluded, “We call and demand that government should release as a matter of urgency, N30 billion for non-teaching staff. JAC has approved protests from the branches, protests at the zonal levels of our unions and mother of all protests in Abuja for three days, before a deadline is given to the government for the mother of all strikes that will follow. The protest will commence on Monday 15th July 2019”.