Following the abrupt calling off of the ongoing strike action by the Joint Action Committee of Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU), aggrieved members of the University of Lagos chapter on Wednesday stage a protest.
The aggrieved members booed and threw sachets of pure water at their leaders who addressed them concerning the suspension of the strike.
Truthlive.net recalls that in a statement on Saturday, the Joint Action Committee of both unions had ordered all its members nationwide to resume on Wednesday without any further delay.
Following the instruction from its leadership, members of the Lagos chapter of the union staged a protest in disagreement with the suspension of the strike action..
The national industrial action which commence almost five months ago on March 27, 2022 was called it off on August 20, 2022.
According to some members of NASU/SSANU, JAC was supposed to have called for a congress before the abrupt calling off of the strike.
The angry UNILAG members could be seen wielding placards with inscriptions, ‘We have no confidence in the national leaders of NASU/SSANU,’ ‘We are tired of general secretary, Adeyemi Peters and Mohammed Ibrahim of SSANU, they must go!’, We are civil servants, not slaves,’ and ‘NASU SSANU say, no salary, no resumption’ among others.
Similarly, some of the protesters were said to have chased away their executives and attempted to beat them up
Meanwhile, SSANU former chairman, UNILAG, Mr Oriwaye Adefolalu, lamented that JAC of SSANU and NASU erred by calling off the strike.
Adwefolalu said, “The way they did it was wrong. You took a decision without going back to the branches. If the government is deceiving us, if the management of the university is deceiving us, the union we fund with our sweat should not deceive us.
“That is why you see people are very angry with them. The incumbent leadership of SSANU is not truthful. Initially, I thought they didn’t know what they were doing but they do. All they are after is their personal gain.
“We are telling them now to go back and reverse their decision. I am 100% convinced that the suspension of the strike was stage-managed by the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, to save his job.”
Also, UNILAG NASU branch former chairman, Ganiyu Adeshina, said, “The fact is that our union leaders at the national level have failed us for not getting back before signing the MoU. The past salary must be paid because we have not contravened any law.
“The law says you must be on strike for three months before your salary can be stopped. We have not even spent two months before they stopped our salary and no union leader will sign that salaries of his members should not be paid.’’
However, the National President of SSANU, Muhammed Ibrahim, expressed his disappointment over the protesting members of the unions, saying three branch members of each of the unions were at the council meeting where the decision to call off the strike was taken.
We have a leadership in UNILAG and we are not aware that the leadership is protesting, they are dissidents who called themselves members in UNILAG, they are novices or they don’t know what the union stands for or what the constitution of the union says, he added.
“The Constitution of SSANU clearly states that it is only members of the executive committee who can suspend a strike. The national executive committee has three members per branch meaning UNILAG three members were at the meeting and we were not aware of anyone disagreeing with the decision. The constitution clearly states how grievances are to be addressed; they can write the union through the leadership of branches through the zone and then to the national body.
“There is no place in the constitution that gives the right to people to start throwing stones, pure water, and fighting themselves because they are not happy with the decision taken by the union.’’
He explained that the constitution maintained that only the national executive body had the power to call off a strike, saying the constitution did not give room that they had to seek the opinion of the branches before taking decisions.