FUTA staff demand N8b earned allowances from FG

Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) of Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA) has urged the federal government to expedite payment of its earned allowances.

In continuation of their strike, the members, yesterday, wielded placards bearing ‘Government, reinstate staff school teachers now’, ‘Government, pay us our earned allowances’, ‘FGN, pay our N8 billion earned allowances’, ‘SSANU says no to injustice over staff school’, ‘A law-abiding govt must obey court judgement’, ‘Pay staff school teachers’ salary’, ‘NUC, FGN: who is withholding our earned allowances’, among others.

Addressing journalists after the union’s meeting in FUTA yesterday, the national public relations officer (PRO), Mr. Abdulsobru Salawu, said that the three-day nationwide strike was pertinent. Salawu lamented that FG reneged on the promises it made to the association last year, attributing it to the insensitivity of the political class.

He added that there were over four Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) that were not honoured. The PRO decried the blatant defiance to the judgement of the National Industrial Court (NIC) in December 2016 ordering it to re-absorb the staff. His words: “Mid last year, the federal government assured us that it had released N8 billion to be disbursed to all non-teaching staff unions in the university system. And as we speak, till today, no such disbursement has been made.

“As at today, we have over 2,000 staff that have been disengaged technically by the federal government on the account of an obnoxious circular that was released by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission.”

He revealed that “our re-negotiation with the Babalakin committee, we want to say that we are disappointed and hereby express our disenchantment with the pace of negotiation by the federal government’s team.

“We have been inaugurated almost two years now and as we speak, no movement has been made; we have had series of meetings, and none of them has yielded any result; they refused to agree with it.”