By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Allied and Education Institutions, (NASU) have announced a suspension of its industrial action.
This comes as all efforts that led to the February 14 industrial action of university lecturers under the aegis of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have been unsuccessful, a labour action that has seen public universities in Nigeria locked up for over five months.
The Nigerian Government had insisted that payment of salaries will not be made to the lecturers for the past five months they were not in the classroom, a decision ASUU leadership has kicked against.
Minister Adamu, who had hinted of SSANU and NASU’s strike suspension on Thursday, said ASUU rejected the government’s proposal over the “no work, no pay” rule.
ASUU President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke had on Friday said salary backlogs must be cleared before lecturers return to the classroom.
SSANU and NASU officially announced the suspension of its industrial action on Saturday after a brief meeting with the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu in Abuja.
According to the education minister, the Federal Government has committed N50 billion to pay earned allowances for members of SSANU, NASU and the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
Even as the suspension of strike takes effect from Wednesday, activities in public universities are expected to remain limited as
“If we agree on that, therefore, the lectures we should have given [to students] for 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 [sessions], should be allowed to go so we start a new session, 2022/2023, in September,” Professor Osodeke said.
“Therefore, by July next year, I would go on my leave as we used to have in those days so that the backlog is gone. All the lectures that remain; all the two sets of admissions that JAMB has given that are waiting should become irrelevant.”
He explained that when “other unions go on strike and come back, all those periods for which you are on strike, you don’t need to do the backlog of work.
“But for ASUU, when we go back today, we are going to start from the 2020/2021 session. For these two sets of students that have been admitted by JAMB, we have to teach them over these periods to ensure that we meet up with the system.
“So, we are going to do the backlog of the work we have left behind. We are not going to start today and say ‘This session is 2022/2023, therefore, all these two sets of people that have been admitted by JAMB are cancelled. We have to take another admission for the 2023/2024 session’.”
