LAGOS— One year after 21 staff members of the University of Abuja, UNIABUJA, got a judgment from the National Industrial Court, Abuja, ordering the institution to reinstate them, the institution is yet to comply with the judgment, an investigation.
The 21 workers were part of the 32 that were disengaged by the management of the institution in 2016.
The workers were non-teaching senior staff employed by the university in February 2008. Three of the workers are now dead.
They said: “We were legitimately employed after due process in February 2008. Thereafter some of us transferred our services to the university from our former employers while others were confirmed after the two-year probationary period.
“Along the line in 2015, there was an industrial dispute between the University of Abuja union leadership and the then management of the former Vice Chancellor, Prof.Michael Adiukwu.
“Coincidentally in the same 2015, the Federal Government issued a circular to federal universities to stop sending the names of teachers in their staff schools to the government for salaries but followed the 2009 agreement between the Federal Government and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU.
“We sent a delegate to Benin to meet with the then Council Chairman now of blessed memory, General Samuel Ogbemudia and narrated our matter to him. He listened to us and reasoned with us with a letter to the management not to tamper with our jobs. As we were exploring that avenue, the national body took the Federal Government to NICN.
“Rather than listening to the Council Chairman, the management set up a committee for the disengagement of staff school teachers that same year when the matter was already in Court and the judgment came in December 2016. Meanwhile, we did not see any letter of disengagement let alone signing it.
“All of a sudden, we just discovered that our salaries were stopped in January 2017 but we continued our work and they even provided buses to carry our students. They sent students to us for teaching practice.
“In 2017, the Federal Government issued a circular to all VCs of federal universities to stop further action concerning staff school teachers pending the determination of the matter in court. In the same 2017, the federal government issued another circular to all VCs that the implementation of the court judgment would start on January 1, 2018.
“Rather than recall us, the University of Abuja only took those staff in Basic 1-6(whose salaries were not stopped and redeployed them to other departments in the University and left us from Basic 7-9 alone languishing in pain. We went to the NICN in two groups in 2021and the first judgment came in our favour on March 23, 2023,” one of the affected workers told newsmen in confidence.”
The workers are now calling on President Bola Tinubu to look into their matter, just as they made the same appeal to the Minister of Education, Prof Tahir Mamman.
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