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General News of Wednesday, 13 January 2021

Source: www.mynigeria.com

N40bn Allowance: UNILORIN SSANU, NASU begin 3 day protest

University of Ilorin University of Ilorin

Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the non-academic unions of Universities, University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) branch has embarked on a three-day protest to express their displeasure of the alleged uneven sharing process of the N40 billion Earned Allowance the Federal Government released to the public university's workers.

The protest which began on Tuesday, January 12, 2021, had the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) join their colleagues in the demonstration.

According to the Groups the federal government failed to resolve their grievances as promised.

The aggrieved workers have threatened to begin an industrial action should government fail to honour their agreements after the demonstration.

The protesters held with them, placards with inscriptions such as “release our N30 billion earned allowance now,” "pay us our minimum wage arrears,” “stop usurpation of headships of non-teaching units by teaching staff,” “pay retirement benefits of our outgone members,” “enough is enough! Don’t kill education in Nigeria,” “no to 75: 25 per cent sharing formula” and “correct irregularities with IPPIS now.”

Prior to this protest, ASUU had embarked on an industrial action that left students home for a period of nine months.

In a publication sighted on thenationonlineng.net, UNILORIN branch of SSANU, Comrade Oyedepo Joseph narrated how the federal government misled them into halting last year's strike.

He said, out of N40 billion earned allowances the government released recently, N30 billion was allotted to ASUU while the remaining N10billion was given to other unions, which he described as unacceptable.

"We have tried a lot. It is only that we don’t have a listening government. Last year October, we embarked on strike. They asked us to tell our members to resume for work in which we did.

“They said they will answer us before the 30th of November. Up till now, we have not received any of those agreements promised by the federal government to our members. The issue of minimum wage arrears is there. It is long overdue," he noted.

Comrade Suberu Ibrahim from NASU on his part said several members have not received salaries for the past eleven months as a result of the enrolment of staff of universities in the government-inspired Integrated Payroll Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

“You would recall that sometime in October last year, the non-teaching staff comprising of SSANU and NASU went on 14 days strike demanding for our welfare to be enhanced. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was entered into by the federal government and the union at the national level.

“Unfortunately, all the agreements have not been met by the federal government. Part of our problems that have not been resolved is that they (government) co-opted us into IPPIS in February 2020. As I am talking, a number of our staff have not taken their salaries for the approved by the IPPIS people.”