The leadership of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities, NASU, and the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, SSANU, of the Federal University Oye-Ekiti, FUOYE, led their members on a peaceful protest at the main entrance of the institution on Tuesday.
The members of the non-teaching staff of the institution are demanding that the Federal Government pay their four months’ withheld salaries.
The aggrieved members carried placards with different inscriptions, such as “NASU/SSANU says no to injustice in the payment of withheld salaries,” “We are not beggars, FG pay our salaries,” and “NASU/SSANU members are not second class citizens,” among others.
Addressing newsmen, the acting chairman of NASU in FUOYE, Comrade Ayeni Abraham, accused the federal government of being insensitive to their plight.
His words: “We are protesting because of our four months of withheld salaries by the federal government. It is so unfortunate that we are still operating at this level. This money we are agitating for is long overdue.
“During the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2022, we were agitating for this money and at that time, our national leadership had been holding a series of meetings with the government to pay us this money.
“The FG played insensitivity to the plight of workers. They refused bluntly to pay our money. When the administration of President Bola Tinubu came, we proceeded with the agitation for our money. It was promise upon promise and MoU upon MoU without any result.
“Today, we were given directives from our national headquarters to carry out this protest to demand payment of four months of arrears on our salaries. Our counterparts from ASUU were paid four months’ arrears of their salaries at the expense of non-teaching staff on campus.
“This is injustice and that is the reason why we are here today to tell the FG to pay our money, to tell FG theat we are suffering and that we are not second-class citizens.
“We can no longer bear this hardship again. We are here to register our grievances to FG to kindly pay our four months’ withheld salaries. The money is long overdue and this money is our legitimate right. It is what we have worked for.”
He stated further: “After this protest, our national leadership will be having their own protest in Abuja on Thursday. A day after the protest, they will have a meeting. If the FG is ready to pay our money, all these actions will be suspended, but if the FG fails, probably it may be a total shutdown, we are going to embark on a total shutdown which has no date.”
His counterpart and chairman of SSANU in FUOYE, Faleye Benjamin, said that beyond the four months of withheld salaries, members of the union are battling with the harsh conditions of the economy.
He said: “We are expecting FG to do the needful within a short period of time. We are only using this strategy of protest in order not to embark on strike. We believe strike should be the last option because we still believe very much in this country and that is why we are still agitating.”
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