Our Workers Are Not Slaves, They Should Be Paid When They Fulfil Their Duties – SSANU To Tinubu

The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has told the government that its workers are not slaves and should be paid when they fulfil their contractual obligations.

They warned that they would continue to agitate if they do not receive positive feedback from the government.

The Association alleged that saboteurs in President Bola Tinubu’s administration are trying to frustrate his good intentions.

The National President of SSANU, Mohammed Ibrahim, stated this at the 47th National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the union at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, (FUTA), Ondo State.

Ibrahim urged Tinubu to purge his administration of saboteurs and replace them with people ready to help him deliver on his mandate.

He said: “The President should understand that he has saboteurs in his government. They are not helping him and the powers of the President and what will make him responsible and responsive to Nigerians is to hire and fire, work with people who can deliver.

“You cannot continue to keep cabal within the system. And you say one thing tomorrow it’s sabotaged. As a union, we raise our voices that presidential pronouncements must be matched with action. We cannot continue to celebrate and clap over speeches. What we want is action.

“Workers in the universities deserve the best. We churn out young men and women to work in the industry to work for the government to be on their own. And I have the course to say that if you spend well on education, you will spend less on insecurity, you will spend less on health challenges, you will spend less on other issues. But when you don’t spend on education, you will continue to spend on defense on insecurity and other frivolities.

“So people should understand and our leaders should know that governance is not a child’s play. If you’re a leader you must be responsive. We have course also to complain about how our state universities are treated.”

The SSANU President said his members are not slaves and can never be, adding that they have a calling and a contract with government and their employers to execute whatever they have agreed to do.

“We do the work that we do. If we work and you don’t pay (us), we agitate. If we agitate and you don’t respond, we must go on strike because it’s lawful and it’s within the ambit of the law and within our rights,” he added.