University workers have threatened to paralyse academic activities nationwide to protest the Federal Government's refusal to implement the 2009 agreement signed with them.
The workers, under the aegis of Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) and the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT), at the weekend, gave the federal government up to Wednesday to accede to their demands, failing which they shall embark on an industrial action.
The three unions sent a letter to that effect to the Federal Government, through the Minister of Education, as well as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Senate and House of Representatives, the minister of labour and other relevant government offices.
SSANU President, Comrade Samson Ugwoke and the NASU General Secretary, Comrade Peter Adeyemi, who spoke with journalists on the strike threat, insisted that Wednesday, November 30, 2011 is the deadline for the implementation of the agreement.
While Comrade Ugwoke spoke on the readiness of the unions to ground academic activities in the nation's universities, his counterpart in NASU, Comrade Adeyemi said the only thing that would guarantee stability and industrial peace in the universities was for government to assure their members of 65 as the retirement age.
He also insisted that a bill to that effect be passed.
It will be recalled that an accord was reached with the unions by the government on October 10 on the issue of the retirement age, improvement on the funding of universities, enhanced allowance and career structure for Technologists, CONTISS 14 and 15.
Also, the Implementation Monitoring Committee on the 2009 FG/ NASU/SSANU/NAAT agreement was commissioned to conclude discussions and present report on November 22.
The agreement was signed by the Minister of Education and two permanent secretaries from the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labour for government, while Comrades Ugwoke, Adeyemi and NAAT President, Abdulatef Jokomba signed for their respective unions.
Confirming the strike threat, Ugwoke, said: "Yes, by December we will shut down all the universities in the country.
"The situation is clear, because on October 10, 2011 after the seven days warning strike, we had a meeting with the Ministers of Labour and that of Education, including their permanent secretaries and the leadership of the three unions, SSANU, NASU and NAAT.
"At the end of the meeting, there was an MOU which was signed with the three unions that by November 22, 2011, all committees must have completed discussions on the pending issues that had not been addressed and to be presented. But as I am talking to you now, government has not called us for a meeting."
He added that the unions had even written a reminder letter urging the government to remember the importance of the November 22 MOU and that after that day, they, the unions would give them an extra week after which they would resume the suspended strike.
To actualise this, SSANU president said the highest ruling body of NASU had met and deliberated on the matter, and SSANU National Executive Council would be meeting from November 30 to December 2 at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka to also discuss the matter.
Comrade Adeyemi, the NASU General Secretary who spoke to journalists at the end of the 5th National Delegate Conference of NASU, said: "We had that agreement that we give government up to November 22 and that day has passed.
"Naturally we also had a meeting of the joint unions, that is NASU, SSANU and NAAT, and we wrote another letter to the government to say we will give them up to the end of the month. I think my idea about that is not that when the month ends we will just start the strike.
"We had some information about what is going on right now at the National Assembly. This bill has gone through the first and the second reading, so it shows clearly that some measure of action is going on, but if by November 30 we meet and we find out that we are not sufficiently encouraged by what has happened, of course it is a suspended strike, we will have no option than to reinstate the strike.
"That is the position; it is as straight forward as that. We will review the situation by November 30 and if we are convinced that there is a need for us to start a strike we will resume the strike."DAILYTIMES
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