Academic activities were on Monday temporarily disrupted in University of Abuja as the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, NASU, commenced a seven-day warning strike.
NAN reports that the protesting workers blocked the entrance to the university, preventing students and others from going inside.
Mr Nureden Yusuf, SSANU Branch Chairman, while addressing newsmen, said the strike was to protest their four months withheld salaries.
According to Yusuf, the unions were on strike to draw the attention of the government to the state of the universities.
“You may recall that one of the contentious reasons we went on strike in 2022 was the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement.
“That agreement ought to be renegotiated every three years and now we are in 2024, that is fourteen years after the last agreement, it is yet to be renegotiated.
“Also, we are talking about withheld salaries, which President Bola Tinubu in October 2023 gracefully agreed that should be paid to us.
“Our counterparts in the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, had been paid their four months salaries, but, we are yet to receive our salaries.
“NASU and SSANU are unions of professionals. We oil the wheel of the university system,” he said.
