Striking members of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, NASU, and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, yesterday turned down persuasions from the Federal Government to call off the strike.
The workers insisted that until they got an alert on the withheld salaries, the industrial action would continue.
Recall that the Joint Action Committee, JAC, of the two non-teaching staff unions had embarked on an indefinite strike on Monday on the expiration of the ultimatum they gave to the government on the withheld salaries.
President Bola Tinubu had recently approved that 50 per cent of the four months’ withheld salaries be paid, but several months after the approval was made, nothing has happened.
Worried by the effect of the ongoing strike, the Federal Government convened a meeting with the aggrieved university workers yesterday, with a view to persuading them to suspend the strike.
Speaking to Vanguard on the outcome of the meeting, the President of SSANU, Comrade Mohammed Ibrahim, said: “The conversation was very cordial, very fruitful, very frank. So like I said, it was chaired by the outgoing Minister of State for Education at the instance of the Minister of Education, who joined the meeting virtually.
“So, they related the position of government that they have extracted commitment from the Minister of Finance that the payment will be made.”
Asked when the government promised to make the payment, he said: “They said before the end of the month. Today (yesterday) is 31st, so, we are still on 31st and we told them that until then, the mandate we have from our people is that we can only suspend when the money is paid.
“Remember, so many other promises were made before and so that’s our position. So we left on a very cordial note. There was this clear understanding that we’re waiting for payments, we can only suspend until we get the payment.”
On whether the government made any attempt to persuade them to suspend the strike, Ibrahim said: “What will they say? They will not say anything new.
“There were a lot of persuasions but like I told you, we went there with the mandate of our people, and the mandate given to us was that we must make sure we get the payment because there is already an approval.
‘’It’s not something that has not been approved. There’s an approval of the President. So, it’s the release that is the problem.
‘’If the President has approved, those in charge should be able to release the money and they promised to release it. Since they did not say they will not release the money, we said okay, until then.”