SSANU to FG: Obey court order, reinstate sacked university staff school teachers

The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has called on well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the Federal Government and President Muhammadu Buhari to as a matter of fact ordered erring universities to reinstate the university staff school teachers to the university payroll and pay all their outstanding arrears of salary in order not to jeopardize the current peace currently being enjoyed in all universities across the country.

This was disclosed by the National vice president and chairman western zone of the association, Comrade Alfred Jimoh, while addressing journalists at the union secretariat, University of Ibadan, on Monday.

Jimoh who disclosed that the leadership of the union is worried that some of the affected members of the staff are now living in a state of penury following the disrespect to a court judgment, notably by two federal universities, University of Ibadan (UI) and Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile Ife, Osun State.

According to him: ”The federal government took SSANU to the industrial court in Abuja to seek the interpretation of a clause in the 2009 FGN\SSANU agreement which says: The University shall be responsible for the capital and recurrent expenditure of the staff primary school. While the government agents claimed that the university as contained in the agreement means that each university and not government shall be responsible for their staff primary schools as their private enterprise, the union SSANU who sat to negotiate and sign the agreement, insisted that since government is the owner of the universities, the university, as contained in the agreement means the government.”

He added that the national industrial court in its judgment delivered on December 5, 2016, ruled in favour of the union (SSANU) that the government shall as contained in the agreement. It is, therefore, surprising to see the government who had earlier boasted that it would abide by the ruling of the court prevaricating over the implementation of the court judgment.

“Consequently, our members in this sections/units of the universities, particularly in the Obafemi Awolowo University and the University of Ibadan, have been subjected to untold hardship and humiliation as a result of non-payment of salaries and or irregular payment of half salary.”

Jimoh noted that “the situation is fast running out the patience of SSANU as a union as all our diplomatic shuttles in the corridor of power seem not to have yielded the desired positive result.

“We, therefore, use this medium to call on well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the federal government and Mr. President Muhammad’s Buhari to do the needful by reinstating the university staff school teachers to the university payroll and pay all their outstanding arrears of salary.”

On earned allowance, Jimoh said the contentious issue is yet to be resolved in the federal universities.

He said, “despite the claim of the federal government to have released the N25 billion to all unions in the federal universities to take care of the earned allowances of all staff since last year, it is disheartening to note that as we speak, the government is yet to release the said fund to the universities.”