The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities ( SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities ( NASU), FUTA Chapters, on Wednesday went spiritual to press home of their demands from the Federal Government on the third day of the seven-day warning strike.
The members of the unions, who converged at the school’s gate, were seen singing and praying to God to intervene in the crisis and favour their unions in the scheduled meeting with the Federal Government on Wednesday.
The unions had put the gate under the lock and key restricting vehicular movement to the university’s campus.
Speaking to the Newsmen on the development, the Chairman of SSANU in FUTA, Comrade Felix Adunbi, said that the essence of the spiritual inclusion was for union’s leadership to have wisdom to convince the government on the need to pay union’s members’ salaries and dues.
“ We are singing and praying to God so that our leadership in meeting with the government today can have wisdom to convince the government and that we can have God’s favour. As we know that everything depends on mercy of God.
“ We express our faith in God by committing our fate in His hands ; that we have a fair deal after today’s meeting.
“ It is not that anybody has interest in staying at homes; we are pushed to this extent because there is no other alternative.
“ We have given the government enough time and a lot of ultimatums have expired. We are hoping that the Federal Government would do the needful today,” he stated.
The SAANU Chairman said that the union’s members had grounded all administrative and technical activities within the school in full compliance to the directive of the union’s national leadership.
According to him, the vacuum will remain until the government yields to the union’s demands.
“ Today is the third day of the warning strike and the compliance by our members is highly encouraging. So, all administrative and technical activities are paralyzed.
“ We also monitor the activity if there could be one or two persons that want to sabotage the effort. We are on ground and we will continue tomorrow.
“The essence of this strike is to stop our services. The vacuum will remain because our members do not provide any service now,” he said.
He, however, said that the union could allow emergencies to be moved out of the school for proper attention.
“ The emergencies that we had in the course of this strike, we allowed them to move them to nearest health facilities for proper medical attention. Anything that has to do with life, we open the gate for them on humanitarian ground,” Adunbi said.
Similarly, the NASU Chairman in FUTA, Comrade Adebayo Aladerotohun, said that the NASU, FUTA Chapter, believed that God rules in the affairs of men, hence the need for spiritual inclusion in the strike.
“ We have been going around since Monday to ensure the strict compliance to the strike.
“Today, we decided to go spiritual because it’s our own belief in our university here that God rules in the affairs of men and the people in Abuja there are no exception, they are still under God.
“ If we can pray, God can intervene especially that the unions and the government are having a meeting today. Thereafter, we locked the gate to see our offices to know the level of compliance,” he said.
Aladerotohun explained that the strike was to press home the demands of the union.
“ The issue is first to ask for our salary arrears during the time we were on strike. The government had given a waiver that all the university unions should be paid including the NASU.
“ But we were taken aback when we realized that it was only one stakeholder that was paid. So, we too, want to be paid. We have taken every lawful decision and step that ought to be taken but the government is reluctant to do the needful.
“ Another issue is the composition of university’s governing council and N6 bullion allowance agreed to by the government.
“Also, the issue of withdrawal from the IPPIS is there too.The government had agreed to all these but yet to implement them,” he stated.
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