Nigeria SSANU Resumes Strike, Rejects Salary Increase

Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU) said it will resume its suspended strike today. The union has also rejected the proposed 40 per cent salary increase.
SSANU’s President, Mr Promise Adewusi, announced this in Abuja at a news conference after the emergency meeting of the union’s National Executive Council (NEC) yesterday.
On June 29, the union embarked on a seven-day warning strike, demanding a better working environment and enhanced conditions of service. Adewusi said that two weeks after the strike’s suspension, the Federal Government had yet to fully implement its signed agreement with SSANU.
“We negotiated for over two and half years, agreement was reached and signed, yet government keeps saying there was no agreement.
“Even if the agreement was signed for only identification, which we were not told at that time, it is still binding and the government should fulfil its own contractual obligations in it.
``If the government is always wriggling out of negotiated agreements at will, how then would they expect the international community to take them serious in the ongoing national re-branding campaign?
“In view of this, SSANU has resolved to reject in its entirety the proposed 40 per-cent salary increase for its members and insist on the full implementation of its agreement with the Federal Government.
“Government has violated the sanctity of the agreement and until that sanctity is restored, the NEC has directed all SSANU members to resume the suspended strike and proceed on an indefinite strike with effect from July 20,'' he said.
Adewusi said that the implication of the action was that the universities would be shut because SSANU members were in charge of maintaining the institutions’ services. He advised parents and guardians to withdraw their children or wards from the universities, as there was no guarantee that there would be facilities to sustain their stay on the campuses.
He said that even SSANU members working in the institutions’ clinics would withdraw their services until the government responded to the union’s demands. Adewusi said that one major issue in the agreement related to the funding formula, particularly in areas which required improved funding. “Our collective bargaining was not centered on salaries as such; we are against the notion that university students should pay NI80, 000 per session whereas the minimum wage still stands at N5, 500.
“How many parents can afford to pay N180, 000? Even with the current N20, 000 or N25, 000 tuition fees in the federal universities, many parents can still not comfortably pay the fees,’’ he said.