The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities(SSANU) and the Non- Academic Staff Union(NASU) have announced plans to embark on a 2-weeks warning strike beginning from Monday, October 5.

The two groups jointly declared plans to embark on the industrial action after a meeting of its Joint Action Committee(JAC) today Friday, October 2.

Addressing newsmen shortly after their joint congress held at the University of Lagos (Akoka), the chairmen of SSANU and NASU of UNILAG branch, Olusola Sowunmi, and Kehinde Ajibade, said the strike is general and involve all public universities in the country.

They said the action is a directive from the national leadership of the two unions to all their branches nationwide. According to them, the associations decided to embark on the strike so as to press home their demands on contentious issues from the federal government.

They listed them to include non-payment of arrears of their national minimum wage for 10 months, inconsistency in the implementation of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System(IPPIS), non-payment of arrears of their earned allowance since 2012, non-showing of seriousness in renegotiating their 2009 agreement, neglect and poor funding of state universities, corruption and non-constitution of visitation panels as well as a usurpation of headship in non-academic matters by the academic staff as the contentious issues.The associations warned that they will proceed on a total strike should the Federal government fails to address all their issues while their warning strike lasts.

The associations say all their members had been mobilized for compliance with the directive.

This development comes amidst the 7-month old strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities ASUU which is still ongoing.

Rtn. Victor Ojelabi

Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.