Strike: FG needs time to implement agreements – Unions

The University of Ilorin (Unilorin) chapters of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) have said they suspended the industrial actions to give the Federal Government time to implement the agreements it reached with the university workers.

Mr Naheem Falowo, the Unilorin-SSANU Chairman, stated this on Monday while fielding questions from newsmen in Ilorin.

Faliwo explained that the decision to suspend the protracted industrial dispute was informed by the need to enable the federal government some time to implement the agreements comprehensively.

He noted that government accepted to put machinery in motion for the onward implementation of all the eight-point demands before it.

The SSANU chairman, who is also staff of the Bursary Department of Unilorin, explained that the government accepted to work towards a remarkable improvement in the welfare of staff of state-owned universities as demanded by the unions.

Also speaking, Mr Ibrahim Suberu, the NASU Chairman of Unilorin, said the federal government equally promised in the agreements voluntarily signed with the unions to implement the agreed percentage increment in the salaries of university staff without any exception as from Sept. 1, 2022.

Suberu also disclosed that the government has approved the release of N50 billion for the payment of earned allowances.

He added that the unions were assured the money would be shared among federal government-owned universities for onward payment to all their staff members and without any form of discrimination in its disbursement between the academic staff and their non-teaching counterparts as witnessed in the past.

The NASU chairman pointed out that the sustained efforts of the unions also eventuated in the federal government’s realisation of the absurdities that have characterised the implementation of the Integrated Personnel Payment Information System (IPPIS).

He added that one of the successes of the strike was that the government was now poised more than ever before to have a rethink on the IPPIS as it has empowered a committee chaired by the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Prof. Issa Pantami.

According to him, this is to harmonise the payment platforms jointly proposed by SSANU and NASU and the one put forward by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).