Nigerian university system needs urgent attention –SSANU

The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has described the Nigerian university system as one in need of urgent attention to correct its anomalies.

Mr Patrick Esiehor, Chairman, SSANU, Federal University of Petroleum Resources Effurun (FUPRE) branch, said this in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Warri on Tuesday.

Esiehor, while commenting on the warning strike the association embarked upon on Monday, said the strike would continue until the national body order its suspension.

A check by NAN to the university campus on Tuesday revealed that members of SSANU were not at their duty posts true to the call for the strike.

The branch chairman said that members of the association in FUPRE fully complied with the warning strike.

“As I speak with you now, I am at home and likewise others.

“The strike is holding and total in FUPRE. The people you met on duties today on the campus belong to other unions in the university.

“For SSANU, we are on strike. We are not happy with the way the government is treating the non-academic staff in the same university system.

“We followed due process before we embarked on our previous strike, but it is quite unfortunate that the government politicised things and decided not to pay salaries within that period.

“Now that Mr President has given an Executive Order that the salaries should be paid, a section of the staff was paid and others left behind,” he said.

The chairman noted the failure of the Federal Government (FG) to improve the nation’s university system by correcting some of its anomalies.

He identified the inadequate funding of the university system and the government’s failure to upwardly review salaries with effect from January 2023 as some issues begging for attention.

“Up till now, that has not been implemented.

“However, because of this warning strike, we hear that the government has factored it into this March salary.

“Even if they do that, we have about 14 months arrears of that,” he said.

He alleged that while the Vice-Chancellor, Registrars, and Bursars were also being owed, they had remained quiet being members of management staff.

NAN recalls that the national body of SSANU had ordered its members to embark on a seven-day warning strike effective Monday to press home their demands.