NASU decries exclusion from FG’s allowances

NASU decries exclusion from FG’s allowances

Members of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, NASU, Nigeria French Language School, Badagry chapter in conjunction with Inter-University centers from National Mathematical Center, Abuja,  National Institute of Nigeria Languages, Aba, Abia State,  Arabic Language Language Village,  Gamburu, Maiduguri  and some others   have decried exclusion of members from the earned allowances by the Federal Government.
Addressing news men at the Union’s secretariat, the chapter Chairman, Comrade Zanu John, said that this agitation is as a result of continued marginalisation of NASU from disbursement of the tranche given by November/December, 2017 that only ASUU benefited.

“He said, “The recent N8 billion, which we collectively fought for, was shared among 25 federal Universities, as we were reliably informed”.
According to Comrade Zanu, “We entered into a pact with the government in 2009, which one of our representatives, Comrade Mrs Grace Gazama was a signatory to. In  2013, N80 million was released, which we alongside the Universities benefited from.

“In 2017, the sum of N23 billion was released by the government, N4 billion only was given to non teaching, while academic took the larger chunk of 18.3 billion. We thought that through peaceful agitation, by the time government releases another allowances, Inter-University Centers will be beneficiaries.

“It is unfortunate how the Union decided to exclude us from this last disbursement when our names were in the original list”.
On their next line of action, Comrade Zanu said,  “We are not working alone. We intend writing to the appropriate authorities through our national head, who has advised us to preserve awhile, that something must be done to remedy these anomalies. We have segments of Unions which consists of ASUU,  NASU,  NAT and TANU.  ASUU is the academics while the rest are non teaching.”

When asked about the sharing formula reached among the Unions, Zanu said, “We don’t know where the sharing formula emanated from that left the entire Inter-University Centers out of it completely, when we all fought together for it. Both the teaching and non teaching staffs are all important and cannot do without one another, because  when the Non teaching  down tools, the entire academic community is in comatose.

“We have equally reached out to one of our own, who is the General Secretary of Nigeria Labour Congress, because all the Inter-University Centers are under the University Trade Group, whose national President is Comrade C. Anu, the National Secretary is Prince Adeyemi and the President of Labour Congress, are all doing their best to bring this injustice to limelight.
“Our members are very displeased and very discouraged because no worker gives his best if his right is denied”. He called on government to quickly come to their aid, saying if a father has three children, he provides for two and abandons one, it shows injustice.

This money was gotten through the struggle of  JACK (Joint Action Congress). During our last meeting in Abuja, a communique was issued requesting government to disburse these allowances quickly and include that of the previous year, 2017.

Comrade Zanu called on members to exercise patience, saying in no distant time, their labour must yield fruits.