President of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, Mohammed Ibrahim, has said the union will only call off the ongoing strike when when its members receive alerts of the owed salaries.
Ibrahim stated this during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today on Monday.
SSANU, the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) had declared strike following non-payment of four-month salaries beginning from Sunday night.
During the interview, Ibrahim said SSANU and NASU had been shortchanged by the government, saying that their salaries were stuck with the Ministry of Finance and the strike would be indefinite.
He stated that the union had scheduled to meet with the minsters concerned, but the issue was not about meeting but payment of backlog salaries.
He added that they had made every effort to see the Minister of Finance to no avail.
Ibrahim said, “Today’s strike is not something that has happened suddenly. We have to come to reality with the demands given to us by our members. Adequate notification had been forwarded to the government. No one in the government can say that he is oblivious of this.
“I can confirm to you that we were contacted yesterday (Sunday) and this morning (Monday) by former Minister of State for Education, Dr. Yusuf Sununu, speaking at the instance of the new minister. We are scheduled to meet within the week to see how to sort out this problem. We have made it very clear, meeting with four ministers. It is not the issue of meeting.
“The issue is that we want payment and every procedure has been followed. They can simply direct payment of the money. I assure you that in less than 24 hours we will refer back to our principal and the strike will be suspended.”
When asked if they would only call off the strike when they receive alert, Ibrahim said, “That is it. Unless we get alerts, the strike continues.”
(Daily Trust)
