The University of Abuja (UNIABUJA) chapter of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has joined their colleagues across the country to embark on a one-week warning strike to demand for the full implementation of the FGN/SSANU 2009 agreement.

The strike which starts today, is aimed at protesting the non-inclusion of the allowances in the 2013 budget proposal that was submitted to the National Assembly and to reject the recommendations of the White Paper on Needs Assessment of Universities in Nigeria, which was recently submitted to the Federal Government.

UNIABUJA SSANU in a communiqué issued in Abuja, urged the government to reconstitute the assessment committee to reflect all stakeholders in the university system.

The communiqué signed by its Chairman, Jude Nwabueze, also condemned the recent unrest by engineering students of the university which has since led to the closure of the school.

“It called on the Management, to as a matter of urgency adequately compensate all those who sustained various degrees of injuries and those who lost properties during the crisis… It also called on the university management to quickly rise to the challenge of ensuring adequate security of lives and property in the university,” it read.

The Needs Assessment report, which was recently submitted to the Federal Government had recommended the enforcement of the requirement of a possession of a doctorate degree to lecture in any university after it was discovered that only 43 per cent of teaching staff in the Nigerian public universities have doctorate degrees.
The report also observed that only 44 per cent of the lecturers in public universities are within the ranks of Senior Lecturers and Professors instead of the required 75 per cent.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has appealed to the Federal Government and SSANU to resolve their differences in order to avoid a disruption of the academic calendar.

NANS President, Dauda Muhammed, in a statement issued to journalists, called for a declaration of a state of emergency in the education sector to properly address the challenges facing the sector.

“NANS seriously frowns at the inability of the present administration in Nigeria to find a lasting solution to the series of problems created by the numerous agreements entered into with the unions in the Nigeria educational sector,” the statement had read.