The Police on Thursday restricted the Non-Teaching Staff Unions in the Universities from carrying out a planned streets protest in Abuja over their members’ withheld salaries and other sundry issues
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports the unions comprise of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU)
NAN reports the protesters were restricted to the Unity Fountain where they had gathered to commence movement to the Ministries of Education, Labour and Employment to submit their letters to the Ministers.
Mr Beneth Igwe, the FCT Commissioner of Police (CP), who was personally present, told the unionists that the protest was restricted to the Unity Fountain for security reasons.
The Commissioner, however, declined talking to newsmen on ground to cover the protest.
When NAN reached out to the Command’s Public Relations Officer, SP Josephine Adeh, for further clarifications, she corroborated the position of the CP in an sms message
“They wrote to us about the protest.
“It was, however, agreed that it will be within unity fountain where representatives of each association will address the press and subsequently take their complaints on behalf of others to the appropriate authorities without entering the streets, thereby causing lawlessness,” she wrote.
It would be recalled that the unions on July 7 mandated all branches to hold a one-day nationwide protest on July 9 and a national protest in Abuja on July 18, to express their grievances over the withheld salaries and other pending issues.
Following the directive, the protesting workers gathered at the Unity Fountain carrying placards with inscriptions such as, “Enough of promises: Pay us our four months withheld salaries; “We need funding, pay us what you owe us”.
Other inscriptions read, “federal government stop excuses, pay us our earned, it is our right”, “universities are not constituency project”
Mr Peters Adeyemi, NASU General Secretary while addressing newsmen said the protest was in fulfillment of the commitment reached by the Joint Action Committee of the unions.
According to him, they had engagement with the security agencies before they came out for the protest.
”They are of the view that we should not even hold this rally at all because they felt that the FCT is insecure.
“We, however, told them that we are going to be very peaceful because we have always been known for that
”The issues are very straightforward. In fact, we are not supposed to be involved in protests if the government had acted in a manner that will also calm our members.
“But unfortunately, government appears not to have shown sensitivity to issues affecting the non-teaching staff in our universities and international centres. That is why this matter lingered up to this moment.
“This action actually is forced on us by the inaction of the federal government. So we will use this opportunity of our members assembling here to submit our letters containing our final communication to the federal government,” he said.
He said that the letters would be submitted to the Federal Ministry of Education and the Federal Ministry of Labour, to inform them that they have had enough.
Adeyemi said the unions hoped that after the letters had been submitted, the government would respond to their demands, especially the withheld salaries, within a week.
“If that does not happen, we already have the mandate of our members across the length and breadth of Nigeria on the next line of action.
“If government fails to pay the withheld salaries between now and the next couple of days, we will should not be blamed if we completely shut down the Universities.
“We are not doing this because we are antagonistic to the government of President Bola Tinubu.
“We are Nigerians and we know our rights. When our rights are trampled upon, we have a right to ventilate our anger,” he said.
Also, Mohammed Ibrahim, President of SSANU, said all efforts to engage the federal government have not yielded positive result to address the payment of their salaries.(NAN).
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