The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) have jointly declared a seven-day warning strike over the Federal Government's failure to pay four months of withheld salaries to their members after the 2022 nationwide strike. The decision was reached following a meeting of the joint action committee of the two unions held in Akure, Ondo State capital. In a communique signed by the National President of SSANU, Mohammed Ibrahim, the unions expressed dissatisfaction with the government's handling of the salary payment issue.
The unions had embarked on a nationwide industrial action in 2022, alongside ASUU, to protest the government's failure to fulfill its promises to the workers. SSANU criticized the government's 'no work, no pay policy,' stating that due process was followed before the strike was embarked upon. President Muhammadu Buhari's administration withheld salaries of the workers until he left office, leading to further discontent among the unions.
President Bola Tinubu announced in October last year that his government would pay four months of the withheld salaries to ASUU members, which raised concerns about the fate of SSANU and NASU members. Despite the Nigerian government starting to pay the academics a few weeks ago, the non-academic staff were left out. SSANU and NASU wrote protest letters to the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, and the Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, over the exclusion, and threatened to disrupt industrial peace in universities if the government failed to release the withheld salaries.
