Members of staff of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State, on Wednesday staged a protest over the dismissal of 45 of their colleagues who were teachers of the FUTA Staff Primary School by the Federal Government.
The workers, under the auspices of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, said the affected members had already received their letters of dismissal and vowed to resist the development.
The protesters carried placards with various inscriptions such as, ‘Buhari, this is not the change we voted for; Save our jobs’, ‘Daramola, don’t privatise FUTA Staff Primary School’, ‘Teachers are not second class citizens’, ‘Stop maltreating us in FUTA Staff Primary School’, among others.
Speaking with journalists during the protest, the Chairman of the association in FUTA, Mr. Benedict Chukwudi, also disclosed that members of SSANU nationwide would begin an indefinite strike on Thursday (today ) if the Federal Government failed to withdraw its circulars, announcing the sacking of its over 2,000 members.
Chukwudi described the sacking as illegal, saying there was a lawsuit over the issue still pending in court.
He accused the management of FUTA of spearheading the sacking, saying “It is only FUTA among all the federal institutions that have issued sacked letters to its affected workers.”
According to him, the FUTA management had also declared the workers’ positions vacant and gone ahead to advertise the positions in the national dailies.
He said, “The plan to disengage some SSANU members in 30 federal universities started during former President Goodluck Jonathan’s regime but failed to achieve its aim before the government expired.
“This same circular was again issued on October 9, this year by the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Education, Mr. E.O. Fayemi, directing the government to stop the salaries of the affected workers, despite the fact that the matter is in court. The present government has decided to shun the court and go ahead with the sacking. This is wrong.
“I don’t know why the government has decided to bounce on the university staff school workers because the Navy, Police and other staff schools are still being paid by the government.”
However, the management of the institution, in a statement issued by its Public Relations Officer, Mr. Adegbenro Adebanjo, said it disengaged the workers following the order from the government to do so with effect from December 31, 2015.
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