Strike Cripples Ibadan Varsity

Academic and non-academic activities were paralysed on Monday at the University of Ibadan as the three unions in the institution embarked on a one-week warning strike.

The unions embarked on the strike over the alleged non-implementation of the 2009 agreement reached with the Federal Government.

The unions involved are the Senior Staff Association of Universities (SSANU), Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), and National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT).

Members of the unions were sighted chanting solidarity songs while some carried placards with different inscriptions.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the strike prevented human and vehicular movement as workers, students and visitors to the institution had a hectic time gaining entrance through the main gate.

NAN also reports that the main gate of the institution was under lock and key, preventing vehicles from driving in and out of the institution.

Although majority of the students were on break, the strike disrupted the examination of some 400 level students while post graduate students could not continue their registration.

Some of the final year students, who spoke with NAN, appealed to the Federal Government to urgently address the situation so that their examination would not be disrupted.

The Chairman of SSANU, Mr Wale Akinremi, told newsmen that the strike was to compel the Federal Government to honour the agreement reached with the unions in 2009.

The agreement, according to Akinremi, includes increase in the allowance of non-teaching staff of all universities in the country.

“Even the 65 years retirement age that was formulated by the union has been implemented by state governments while we as the initiator are still struggling for it to be fully implemented,” he said.

His counterpart in NASU, Mr Olusola Cole, expressed regrets that government had not honoured the agreement which it voluntarily signed.

“The public may be looking at us as trouble makers, but we are not. We are fighting for the future generation.

“We are appealing to government to wake up and do what is right,” he said.

Cole said the strike would last one week after which the National Executive Council of the unions would meet to discuss the way forward.

The Director of Public Communication in the institution, Mr Mohammed Oladejo, said the issue at stake was not limited to the University of Ibadan as it was a national strike.

Oladejo, however, implored the unions to go about the strike in a peaceful manner, adding that “we are all stakeholders in the education sector.”