The Academic Staff Union of Universities, the Joint Action Committee of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities will continue their strike.
This comes after ASUU, SSANU, and NASU met with the Federal Government and stated that no strong agreement was reached.
The country’s university unions are currently on strike.
The ASUU strike began on February 14, 2022, and the JAC strike began on April 14, 2022.
Unions staged strikes in order to demand better welfare packages, better working conditions, and the implementation of various labor agreements signed with the federal government between 2009 and 2020.
Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, national leader of ASUU, and Mr Mohammed Ibrahim, national leader of SSANU and NASU, respectively, told our correspondent that the Federal Government, all stakeholders in the education sector, and religious leaders met with the four unions, but no strong agreements were reached.
Senator Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment, was quoted in a weekend report as saying, “We had a cordial and fruitful discussion; we looked at the issues dispassionately and reached some agreements, to the satisfaction of everybody in attendance.”
However, Osodeke stated that Ngige’s post-meeting claim that the unions would call off the ongoing strike this week was a political statement.
He said, “We are not aware that we are calling off the strike. We met but there was nothing concrete between us and the government. Like we said before, we do not want promises, we want actions, if they show action and implement all the issues, we will go to our members, but knowing their antecedents, we know they will not do anything.
“They promised us since December 2020 and it is going to a year and a half, they have not done anything. We are waiting for them.
“As far as we are concerned, only when they sign our agreements, accept UTAS, release EAA and revitalisation funds will we call the strikes off.”
Ibrahim added that the major progress he could point at during the meeting was the ordering of the National Information Technology Development Agency, by the presidency who was represented by the Chief of Staff to the President and Chairman of the meeting, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, to subject the three payment solutions; Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system , University Transparency and Accountability Solution and University Peculiar Payroll Payment System, to integrity test and submit in three weeks.
“We are not talking about calling off strike now,” he said.