We will shut down Varsities next week, SSANU threatens

Innocent Raphael

Non-teaching staff, under the umbrella of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) vowed to have concluded arrangements to shut down necessary facilities in universities across the country over the federal government’s failure to pay their four months withheld salaries.

The workers, at the end of their National Executive Council meeting held during the weekend at Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Ondo State capital, specifically disclosed they had picked the 18th of March to effect their actions in order to press home their demands.

Earlier reports have revealed the Joint Action Committee, comprising SSANU and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), threatened to lock up hostels, security posts, libraries, water tanks, light and others during the strike.

Rising from the meeting, SSANU President, Comrade Mohammed Ibrahim disclosed that members have unanimously resolved that they will not accept the alleged injustice meted out to them.

According to him, there was no logical explanation that was acceptable to justify the non payment of arrears to many staff.

He said, “We have given the next one week where members will go back to their branches and sensitize our members. This time around, it is going to be a total strike. For seven days, there will be no water, no electricity, no medicals, no office work. Everybody will leave his office work until when those seven days are over.

“However, we are hopeful, we are prayerful, that the government listens and then does the needful because we also know that we have a responsibility for society, for the university and for our students. So, nobody should blame us if this thing happens, because we have given enough notice, we have made enough sensitization and we have contacted enough stakeholders.

“So, it’s going to be total, it is going to be a total blackout in our campuses all through Nigeria. In those seven days until when that money is paid.”