The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has accused President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime of short-changing university workers and owing them four months’ salary.

Mohammed Ibrahim, SSANU president, disclosed this in a statement at the 42nd National Executive Council meeting held in Calabar on Wednesday.

“On the backlog of salaries as it affects federal university workers, we have been short-changed because when the law says for you to embark on any strike, you need to follow the due process,” said the SSANU statement. “You are fully aware that our strike followed due process because it was just a resumption of strike. We wrote to the government and notified them, but there was a communication breakdown, and that is why our strike was declared.”

The association explained that “it is not our fault that we went on strike, and there should be no reason” their salaries should be stopped “because we did not go on strike because we wanted to,” citing “a breakdown of communication and negotiation” between the regime and SSANU.

“I want to correct this misconception that SSANU leadership has given up the struggle for the retrieval of those four months. It is our entitlement. It is our salaries, and we cannot leave it to anybody,” stated Mr Ibrahim.

The SSANU president added that the regime had yet to re-negotiate the FGN/SSANU negotiation.

“In the last six months, there wasn’t any communication between the leadership and the government representatives. This is not good. That renegotiation ought to have been concluded way back, and we would have known where we stand,” he noted. 

He added, “Twelve years after signing the 2009 Agreement, we are still struggling with implementation. Very few parts of it have been implemented. Even when they are implemented, they are implemented haphazardly.”

(NAN)