NON-academic staff in the nation’s universities under the auspices of Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), National Association of Academic Technologist (NATT) and Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) on Wednesday, threatened to resume indefinite strike action over the failure of the Federal Government to honour the agreement reached with the unions.
Speaking on the planned strike, the Chairman of Joint Action Committee (JAC), at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Mr Dele Durojaye, said the industrial action by the union may commence next week.
According to Durojaye, the strike action became imperative because of the failure of the Federal Government to honour its pact in the agreement reached with the unions five weeks ago.
The unions had embarked on strike action September last year in order to demand the implementation of the National Industrial Court judgment on the issue of university staff school teachers, payment of earned allowances, payment of shortfalls in salaries and funding of the university system.
The Federal Government through the Minister of Labour, Dr Chris Ngige signed a Memorandum of the term of a settlement between the representatives of the unions and the government which culminated in the suspension of the strike action.
But the unions said the federal government has failed to implement the terms of the agreement between the union and the government that made them suspend the strike action in March.
Durojaye said “I wish to inform the public that as at May 1, the Federal Government has not implemented the agreement freely entered into with the Unions.
“The National executive council of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), will be meeting next week where this issue will be exhaustively discussed and chart a way forward, NASU has taken a position last week at its National Executive Council meeting. ”
Durojaye however, called on the Federal Government to implement the agreement reached with the unions before the three unions embark on strike, saying, this is important before it leads to the total shut down of the nation’s universities.