SSANU Rejects Plans to Sack Varsity Staff School Workers

•Says action may affect 3,000 workers

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU) has threatened showdown if federal government goes ahead to remove teachers in staff schools from the Consolidated Salary Scale, (CONTISS), in the 2022 budget.

It warned the federal government to withdraw the circular directing that workers of the staff schools should not be captured in the 2022 budget, saying it would amount to sacking them.

SSANU also warned that reopening a matter that had been decided by the National Industrial Court (NIC) would affect the industrial harmony being enjoyed in the universities.
It stated that if the government should go ahead to implement the directive, over 3,000 of its members would be affected.

However, the federal government has promised that everything will be done to address the matter and ensure that it didn’t lead to a crisis.
Speaking to journalists in Abuja, weekend, on the looming crisis in the universities, President of SSANU, Mohammed Haruna Ibrahim, accused the federal government of going contrary to the agreement with the union even when the court had given a judgment on the matter.

Ibrahim, who was reacting to the alleged circular from the Budget Office directing that teachers in staff schools should be removed from the CONTISS in the 2022 budget even when there is a subsisting court judgment in favour of the union, said SSANU would “fight” the development to finish.

He said: “Well, the issue is that we are also taken aback by the recent negative development that we just saw last week that the federal government through the Budget Office directed that universities should expunge or remove the list of our members who teach in the university demonstration schools, meaning that they shouldn’t be captured in the CONTISS salary table.
“But the government is planning to put them in a different salary table called CONPISS, the consolidated public service salary scale”.

He said it was a negation of SSANU’s agreement with the government, because the workers in the university demonstration schools were bonafide members of university staff, adding that they have their employment letters signed by the registrar’s of various universities, as approved by councils under the terms and conditions for engagement.
“We will not allow this we will fight again with all the vigour and we will follow all the legal ways of making sure that we defend the interests of our membership, like we did in the first instance,” he said.
He said the government did not consult the union before issuing the directive and threatened that it will fight it till the end.

“Unfortunately, this development shows that the government is trying to create another friction between us and them. Because the attempt was made five or six years ago, when the government decided to remove them completely from the employment and we went to court, as you’re aware, we went to industrial court.
“After a long battle, we got a judgment in our favour. And it was interpreted that members of staff in the universities who teach in the university staff schools or demonstration schools are bonafide members of staff of universities, as employed by councils; therefore, they should be treated as such, those that were sacked should be returned, and that their salaries should be restored,” he stated.