End this non-academics’ strike
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) expressed fears last week that the prolonged strike by members of the non-academic staff unions of Nigerian universities was likely going to affect the smooth conduct of the mock Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination [UTME] that it planned to hold yesterday, Monday February 26, 2018. Its spokesperson Dr. Fabian […]
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) expressed fears last week that the prolonged strike by members of the non-academic staff unions of Nigerian universities was likely going to affect the smooth conduct of the mock Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination [UTME] that it planned to hold yesterday, Monday February 26, 2018. Its spokesperson Dr. Fabian Benjamin said non-academic staffers in the universities are key stakeholders in the planned test. He expressed hopes that the lingering strike would be called off before the date scheduled for the mock UTME.
Unfortunately, the strike was not called off and as envisaged by JAMB, members of the striking unions disrupted the conduct of the exam at some centers when candidates arrived at their venues. At Bayero University, Kano and Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife for instance, the striking workers barred candidates from writing the exam. More disappointing from the unions’ rigid position was their lack of conscience and their dubious morality as they continued to collect salaries they did not earn for the three months they have been on strike.
For the period the on-going strike has so far lasted, students have continued to suffer in various ways degrees as it impedes their use of libraries, laboratories, water and electricity supply as well as access to rooms in students’ halls of residence. Also badly affected is request for transcripts and other academic records by prospective postgraduate students. These have remained unattended to due to the SSANU strikes. Collection of certificates and statements of result have also been stalled by the strike.
The consequences of SSANU’s refusal to call off the strike while negotiations with the federal government continue are too damaging, causing innocent students and the university system to suffer irreparable damage. The strike is needless because there is an alternative to it, which is a possible suspension of the strike for a defined period during which all undetermined issues could be resolved. All these arguments which count against striking non-academic staff in the universities have made them to lose public sympathy which they have been enjoying since the strike began.
It would be recalled that three non-academic unions in Nigerian universities under the aegis of a Joint Action Committee (JAC) on Monday, December 4, 2017 directed members of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) and the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT) to resume the indefinite strike action earlier suspended. Following the separate suspension in September 2017 of the indefinite strike actions by the academic and non-academic staff unions in Nigerian universities, the federal government in November 2017 released N23 billion to 24 federal universities in the country, being the amount owned university staff as Earned Academic Allowance (EAA) for 2009 and 2010. While ASUU received N18.4 billion or 89 percent of the total amount, the three non-academic unions were allocated N4.6 billion or 11 percent.
National President of SSANU Chairman of JAC Comrade Samson Chijoke Ugwoke said when he announced resumption of the strike last December that the unions proceeded with it because government failed to explain the criteria used in the sharing formula that gave ASUU more money than the non-academic unions. Some Nigerians are insinuating that the equality which non-academic unions are asking for in the allowances earnable by academic and non-academic staff in the universities is unrealistic. Others even believe that members of the non-academic unions are greedy in their demands.
Every exam organized by JAMB is a national assignment for which any group or individual that undermines its peaceful conduct could be charged for sabotage. Now that the unions are unjustifiably obstructing the peaceful conduct of a national examination as serious as UTME, we call on the national assembly to consider it as a matter of urgent national importance to intervene in the on-going strike action by the three unions. We urge the lawmakers to bring government representatives and leaders of the three unions to the negotiation table so that this prolonged strike would be called off without further delay.