Senior staff members of the Federal University of Lafia (FULafia), Nasarawa State, on Thursday boycotted official duties to protest what they described as the Federal Government’s negligence toward their welfare.
Addressing journalists after the demonstration, the Branch Chairman of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Comrade Daniel Dajen, said the protest was aimed at drawing the government’s attention to unresolved welfare concerns and lingering demands of university workers.
He explained that the action followed a directive from the association’s national leadership after all efforts to get the government to fulfill its promises on the payment of outstanding entitlements were exhausted.
Comrade Dajen listed the unresolved issues to include the non-renewal of the 2009 agreement, which stipulates that salaries and allowances of university workers should be renegotiated every five years , a process that has not been done since the agreement was signed.
He also lamented that the agreed ₦50 billion earned allowances for universities, approved since 2022, had yet to be implemented.
The union leader warned that if the Federal Government fails to address their demands, the association may not guarantee industrial peace on campuses.
During the protest, the workers, led by their union executives, marched around the university premises chanting solidarity songs and displaying placards with inscriptions such as “Pay Us Our Withheld Salaries as Approved by Mr President,” “Pay us our Earned Allowances,” and “We Are Not Slaves, We Are Not Second-Class Citizens.” (Radio Nigeria)