In Anambra, Unizik SSANU, NASU Insist FG Must Pay Non-Teaching Staff N250,000 Minimum Wage

 

BY RAYMOND OZOJI,  Awka 

The Nnamdi Azikiwe University branches of the Non-Academic Staff Union(NASU)and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) have joined their counterparts across the country to insist that the Federal Government must pay non-teaching staff of the universities N250,000 minimum wage. 

The unions in a warning peaceful protest declared that all public universities would be shutdown indefinitely should the Federal Government refuse to honour their demand for N250,000 minimum wage and other pressing demands. 

The unions during the protest across the university community maintained that they were not idiots neither were they slaves to the Nigerian government; that the university system comprised four unions but only one union was paid salary arrears leaving other three unions to lick their wounds. 

Speaking during the protest, the chairperson SSANU Nnamdi Azikiwe University branch, Comrade Dr. Njideka Nwangwu said it was a warning protest intended to make it clear to the Federal Government that Nigerian workers were no longer happy with the way they were being treated by the powers that be. 

Nwangwu said they were not happy that their withheld salaries have not been paid even though they were aware that the money was approved in the 2023 budget for them to be paid but till date they have not received their four months withheld salaries coupled with other pertinent unresolved issues. 

According to her, Nigerians are no longer secured in their own country. That insecurity is everywhere and citizens are living in fear. She also pointed out that the agreement of 2009 was long overdue for renegotiations. 

The Nnamdi Azikiwe University SSANU chairperson equally stated that workers were due for their N250,000 minimum wage but all to no avail instead the Federal Government is offering them between N60,000 and N62,000 minimum wage which she said were nothing to write home about. 

She emphasized that Nigerian workers are suffering and they drastically need an increase in their minimum wage and the workers, according to her, are proposing N250,000 minimum wage. 

Nwangwu also recalled that N50 billion was approved in the budget by the government of the federation and released for the payment of Earned Allowances yet they still have not received the money. 

She said Nigerian workers are languishing in abject penury and squalor while the Federal Government treated them as slaves as many families can not feed anymore let alone pay their bills. 

On his part, the chairman Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) Nnamdi Azikiwe University branch, Comrade Chukwugozie Ikegulu, said the national body of NASU and SSANU approved the protest and that the next protest would be on 18th July, 2024 where the unions all over the country would congregate to tell the Federal Government that enough is enough. 

Ikegulu also corroborated the fact that no worker is happy in Nigeria anymore. He however acknowledged that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu gave a marching order that all the unions in the universities should be paid their salary arrears but only one union was paid while other unions were not paid theirs. 

He said they would have shutdown universities in the country indefinitely but because they were responsible unions they opted for peaceful negotiations, pointing out that the university system belonged to the non-teaching staff as they handled admissions and graduations respectively. 

He said that if the Federal Government failed to do the needful this time, the upcoming nationwide strike would be very devastating and catastrophic on the university system as NASU, SSANU and NAT have not been paid their four months salary arrears. 

Ikegulu recalled that when their salaries were withheld, some of their members died because they couldn't afford to pay their medical bills. He said even some lecturers died over inability to foot the bills of their medications too. 

He said they have been pushed to the walls and they don't care about what happens next because some people, according to him, are being treated as super humans while others are treated as second class citizens in their own country. 

Meanwhile Comrade Onyebuchi Nwafor a disabled worker on a wheelchair, who was actively involved in the protest, told our correspondent that disabled workers were the worst hit by the none payment of their salary arrears. 

Nwafor who is a trustee of SSANU Nnamdi Azikiwe University branch, implored the Federal Government to do the needful to enable the likes of him meet their responsibilities especially as it concerns fueling their cars to enable them come to work because they can not join public transport because of their conditions. 

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