Non-academic university workers under the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities have issued a firm April 30 deadline to the federal government to conclude renegotiation of their employment agreement and sign the resulting document, warning that failure to meet the deadline would trigger an indefinite, comprehensive, and total withdrawal of services across federal universities.
The union made the position known in a communique issued by its President, Mohammed Haruna Ibrahim, following a National Executive Council meeting in which members expressed frustration over what they described as attempts by the government to project the renegotiation process as concluded when, in their assessment, substantive discussions on key welfare issues remained unresolved.
The union specifically condemned the circulation of a government letter suggesting that a 30 percent increase on allowances had been approved, characterizing the document as an attempt to misrepresent the state of negotiations. Ibrahim said the union had met with the government team seven times between October 2024 and the present, and that two broad areas of renegotiation, monetary and non-monetary, affecting members’ welfare and wellbeing, remained open.
“SSANU will not accept any outcome that falls below the negotiated understanding reached in the course of the renegotiation process, and insists that fairness, due process, and collective bargaining principles must be respected,” the communique stated.
The union said it would coordinate its industrial action with its counterpart, the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, and indicated that members of non-teaching staff from polytechnics and colleges of education would also be mobilized to join the action if the government failed to act.
Ibrahim called directly on President Bola Tinubu to heed the voices of university workers, describing non-teaching staff as the backbone of student welfare and wellbeing within the university system.
“Our members have spoken with one voice. President Tinubu, being a democrat, should listen to the voices of workers in the universities,” he said, while simultaneously conveying the union’s vote of confidence in its current leadership ahead of the anticipated confrontation.
