Lawrence Nwimo, Awka
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Anambra State, Tuesday, staged a peaceful protest in solidarity with striking unions in public tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), and National Association of Technologists (NAT), had embarked on industrial action over Federal Government’s neglect and failure to meet agreements it reached with the several unions.
The protest took place in Awka, the Anambra State capital and attracted hundreds of members from the university-based unions, other unions under the umbrella of NLC such as the Nigeria Union of Journalists, National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), National Association of Nigerian Students, among others.
The protesters were seen with placards with various inscriptions such as ‘FG should do the needful to end the strike now,’ ‘Our children must go back to school,’ ‘Stop the brain-drain now,’ ‘NASU demands for re-negotiation of 2009 Agreement,’ ‘We say no to inconsistency in IPPIS,’ ‘NANS Zone F stands with ASUU,’ ‘Renegotiate the 2009 ASUU and NASU agreement now,’ ‘FG pay us our earned academic allowances,’ ‘Fund our universities,’ to mention just a few.
Speaking during the protest, the Anambra state NLC chairman, Comrade Chinwe Orizu, called on the state governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, to intervene in the dispute between the Federal Government and unions in the tertiary education sector.
According to her, the dispute had manifested in strike action for over 5-months, with a huge cost to the students, the university staff, parents, government and other stakeholders.
She said the organised labour had made efforts to end the strike including writing to the Ministers of education and labour and employment to no avail, while urging the governor to appeal to the Federal Government especially in the immediate payment of withheld salaries, shelve IPPIS, honour agreements government entered into with the unions or renegotiate in good faith.
Also speaking, the ASUU chairperson of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Comrade Stephen Ufoaroh, said the protest by the organised labour was to register their grievance over the continued closure of the federal universities occasioned by government insensitivity and lack of political will to meet the of the unions.
Ufoaroh called on the Federal Government to provide quality education by adequately funding public education from primary to tertiary institutions, even as he frowned at continued withheld salaries and entitlements of the unions.
Also speaking on behalf of SSANU, the Unizik chairperson, Comrade Njideka Nwangwu, decried that university workers were still living with 2009 salaries without review despite the economic realities, while stressing the need for government to reconstitute a fresh committee to handle the union’s matter, alleging that the previous committee ended up creating more problems.
