NASU To Start Nationwide Strike Next Week

The deplorable state of the university system since
members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU) embarked on an indefinite strike to demand
that the government make good its promises as stated in
the 2009 agreement the government had with the union,
may even go worse as the Non-Academic Staff Union
of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU),
Tuesday threatened to commence a nationwide strike
from next week.
National General Secretary of the union, Mr. Peters
Adeyemi, dropped the hint in Ilorin, the Kwara State
capital, yesterday during the National Executive
Council (NEC) meeting of the union.
According to him, "The decision to embark on the
nationwide strike is due to the fact that the members of
the union had not been paid for two months despite
working to keep university system running during the
ongoing ASUU strike."
He said: "NASU will start its own strike action next
week because we have been working and government
has refused to pay our salaries, and for us, it does not
make sense to continue to keep the system running
when we are not paid."
He added: "The reason for this is not known to us.
Workers in all federal universities are not paid their
salaries right now and that's a big challenge.
Government has not paid our salary for August and as
we are talking now, today is September 24, they are
effectively owing us two months salary and there's no
way we can continue to do this work on empty
stomach, while they run around the globe with heavy
stomach."
The NASU General Secretary, who said no reason was
adduced for their non-payment, added, "the unfortunate
thing is that they have no explanation for non-payment
of our salaries.
"That's enough patience on our part despite the fact that
we have our grouse before with the federal government;
that things are not running well. But we think as
Nigerians and parents, we don't have to unnecessarily
ground the system. But if you take this our maturity
and level-headedness to mean stupidity, them of course,
people that complain that we in the university system
have ruined the future of students by going on too
many strikes imposed on us by government will have
no reason not to understand, if we go on our own strike
next week," he stressed
Also speaking, the national president of NASU, Mr.
Ladi Iliya, blamed the National Assembly for fighting
on their political interest and future at the expense of
welfare of Nigerians.
The NASU president, who said the National Assembly
should have deliberated on issue of persistent insecurity
and ASUU strike when it resume session, described the
attitude of the legislators as shameful.