By Orowo Victoria Ojieh
Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union of Allied and Educational Institutions (NASU) have declared a two-week warning strike.
This is contained in a memo by their joint action committee (JAC) addressed to the leadership of the unions’ branches nationwide.
It was signed by SSANU president, Mohammed Ibrahim, and NASU general secretary, Peters Adeyemi, at the weekend. The strike was planned to start by midnight on Sunday, March 27.
The committee said the strike was necessitated by the failure of the Nigerian government to respond to its earlier letter threatening to commence an industrial action if its demands were not met, The Trumpet gathered.
The memo read, “In view of the nonchalant attitude of the government to our demands, this is to direct our members in all universities and inter-university centres throughout the country to commence a two-week strike by midnight of Sunday, 27 March 2022, in the first instance as earlier conveyed to the federal government in our letter. “Please note that the two-week warning strike should be comprehensive and total as no concession should be given under any guise”.
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The unions also called for the strict compliance and adherence to the directive for all branches of NASU and SSANU in the universities and inter-university centres.
The joint action committees (JAC) of SSANU and NASU earlier this month had written to the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, accusing the government of deception in its implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and Memorandum of Action (MoA) reached with the government in October 2020 and February 2021 respectively.
In the letter, the committee gave the government until March 27 2022 to address its demands or it would begin a two week strike action.
Announcement of this strike comes amidst an ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the planned nationwide mass protest by the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS).