Withheld Salaries: NLC kicks as police disrupts SSANU, NASU protest in Abuja

The Nigeria Police, FCT Command, on Thursday, reportedly attacked members of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) who had assembled in Abuja to protest the continued withholding of their members’ salaries.

As the leadership of JAC started to address members at Unity Fountain, the FCT Commissioner of Police, Benneth Igwe, reportedly arrived and warned that the protest would not be allowed to proceed.

Despite entreaties from the union leaders, the police used armored vehicles and Hilux vans to block the gates and prevented the protesters from moving.

Reacting to the development, the Nigerian Labour Congress has condemned the action of the police commissioner, even as it demanded an urgent apology from the police.

The aggrieved staff, who had intended to present letters to the Ministers of Education and Labour and Employment, were left wondering why the police would attempt to stop a peaceful protest in a democracy.

The SSANU President, Mohammed Ibrahim, NASU President, Hassan Makolo, and NASU General Secretary, Peters Adeyemi, addressed the protesting workers.

The union leaders warned that if the four months’ withheld salaries are not paid by next week, they will be forced to shut down universities and inter-university centres.

Withheld Salaries

The Nigerian government withheld salaries of university staff, both academic and non-academic, who participated in a strike that lasted eight months in 2022, affecting university operations.

SSANU and NASU participated in the strike for four months.

President Bola Tinubu’s directive in October to pay four months’ withheld salaries exclusively to academic staff, excluding non-teaching staff, exacerbated the existing tension and created a fresh rift between the non-academic staff union and the government.

Following the announcement, SSANU and NASU vehemently protested the “selective payments” and demanded inclusion.

Despite their efforts, only academic staff received the four months’ salaries in February.

JAC claimed to have written to the Education Minister and the Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, but received no response, leading to their decision to embark on a one-week warning strike in March.

Protest

JAC had consistent accused the Nigerian government of disregarding its demands for the release of their members’ withheld salaries, noting that its meeting with the Federal Ministry of Education’s leadership failed to yield any concrete commitment to addressing the issue and resolving other outstanding matters.

Consequently, the union leadership instructed its chapters in various universities nationwide to initiate sensitisation activities starting from 17 July, and staged a protest on campus on Tuesday, 18 July.

This decision followed a meeting with the Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, the Minister of State for Education, Yusuf Sununu, the permanent secretary, Esther Wilson-Jack, and officials from the National Universities Commission (NUC).

The JAC expressed dismay that their visit to the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment was similarly unfruitful, as the Minister of State was unavailable, citing an urgent call from the villa. Thursday’s protest was, therefore, part of the strategies being deployed by the unions to ensure the payment of the withheld salaries.

NLC kicks

In a statement signed by its Head of Information and Public Affairs, Benson Upah, the NLC said the Nigerian government is “courting a major national protest.”

According to the statement, the police commissioner in FCT violated the rights of the protesters as guaranteed by the country’s constitution and provisions of ILO conventions.

The workers’ union demanded apology from the FCT police command and demanded immediate payment of the workers’ withheld salaries by the government.

The statement is reproduced below:

Press Statement.

18/07/2024

GOVERNMENT IS COURTING A MAJOR NATIONAL PROTEST

The FCT Police Command Commissioner, Compol Bennett Igweh deservedly earned our outrage and contempt by violently breaking up a peaceful protest at Unity Fountain on Thursday, July 18, 2024 by members of two of our affiliates, NASU and SSANU.

Compol Igweh caused to be deployed to the venue of the protest, armoured tanks, assault dogs and police personnel in battle gear who broke up the peaceful protest using excessive force and other hostile means.

The behaviour of the police is an affront to the 1999 constitution (as amended), ILO Conventions 87 and 98 and African Charter on People and Human Rights which guarantee freedom of association and speech; a violation of the Supreme Court ruling that citizens do not need the permit or approval of the police to peacefully protest and an insult to the dignity of self-respecting and law-abiding citizens.

We need to let the powers that be, especially Compol Igweh and those who sent him that we are not in a Police State and if his intentions are to scare and intimidate workers protesting under the law, then they have picked on wrong customers.

We fought for this democracy and we will not fold our hands and allow intestinal-minded people destroy it.

We are concerned that officers like Compol Igweh who should be inspiring a new generation of officers away from the colonial traditions of policing are the ones leading the charge into the abyss.

We want to assure him and his ilks that no one will bestow on him a medal for his unprofessional and disgusting behaviour. However, in the event he finds himself as one of the beneficiaries this new bizarre bazaar of self-bemedalling, we say ahead of time that it is not a medal to wear with honour.

Under Compol Igweh’s watch, FCT has been crawling with bandits, criminals and crooks (both in low and high places) even in the heart of the city. Life has never been this frightening for law-abiding citizens. Instead of training the turrets of his armoured tanks on these social misfits, it is peaceful workers that are his victims.

Igweh does not need to go far for a refresher course on safe-guarding FCT. One of his predecessors who is now a DIG (who rid Abuja of crime and still related well with citizens) is only an ear-shot away at Louis Edet House.

The reason for the peaceful protest by NASU and SSANU is very much in the public domain——non-payment of their four-months withheld salaries after workers in other unions were paid for the same strike action.

The two unions had exhausted all means lawful over a long stretch of time including a warning strike as means for getting their salaries paid.

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But clearly, government took their maturity and patience for granted. What government failed to realise was that it was not only imperilling the tranquillity in the university education environment, it was acting in violation of the constitution which says no citizen should be discriminated against!

If government and the police are proud law breakers, what moral justification do they have to expect others to be of good behaviour!

In light of this, we demand an immediate police apology to NASU and SSANU members whom they violated.

We also demand the immediate payment of the withheld salaries. We had had cause to write to government as well as issued a press statement on this matter in the recent past.

Government will be courting a major national industrial protest if it continues to ignore our wise counsel.

Benson Upah

Head of Information and Public Affairs