– NASU and SSANU have fixed date to begin a three-day protest and strike action

– Both academic unions have fixed Tuesday, January 12, for the move

– The unions are complaining that the federal government has failed to meet the agreement jointly signed by the parties

It is very likely that the announcement by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to end its strike may not mean the resumption of universities in the country anytime soon. This is as the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) have agreed to embark on a three-day protest and strike.

Both SSANU and NASU on Sunday, January 10, announced that the planned industrial action will kick-off from Tuesday, January 12, AIT News reports.

In a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the heads of the unions, unaddressed issues like irregularities in the IPPIS payment, the non-payment of earned allowances, and arrears of minimum wage, and the delay in the renegotiation of FGN-NASU and SSANU 2009 agreements were outlined.

Both SSANU and NASU have claimed that the federal government has failed to keep its part of a signed agreement Source: UGC Added to this, SSANU and NASU claimed other unresolved issues include the non-payment of retirement benefits of outgone staff members, arrogation of powers by teachers in the non-teaching units, the abandonment and poor funding of state universities by the federal government.

The unions lamented that the government has failed to keep to its own part of the agreement, hence their latest decision. Meanwhile, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had said it might resume its suspended strike in February 2021 if the federal government fails to fulfill the promises it made to the lecturers. The national president of ASUU, Prof Biodun Ogunyemi, made this known in Lagos shortly after the union suspended its nine-month-old strike. ASUU had in March begun a nationwide strike over the federal government’s insistence that lecturers must register for the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) and other key issues.