The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has appealed to the Federal Government to pay its members the four months’ salaries owed to them while on strike.

The SSANU President, Mohammed Ibrahim, made the appeal via a statement issued after the union’s 42nd National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, on Wednesday.

Ibrahim stated that the union would not rest on its oars until the Federal Government pays its members the four months’ salaries owed to them within the period they were on strike.

He said the payment of the four months’ salary was imperative as non-teaching staff in the universities were passing through hardship.

The SSANU President noted that there is a high rate of inflation in the country, stressing that this has worsened the difficulty Nigerians are passing through.

“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.

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“You are fully aware that our strike followed the 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.

“Therefore, it is not our fault that we went on strike and there should be no reason why our salaries should be stopped because we did not go on strike because we wanted to. But rather, there was a breakdown of communication and negotiation between us and the Federal Government,” Ibrahim added.

He said SSANU leadership was leaving nothing to chance, adding: “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.”

The SSANU President further stated that the Federal Government was yet to re-negotiate with the union on its demands.

“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 12 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,” Ibrahim noted.

The Star