SSANU cautions governors against establishing universities they can’t fund

The North East Zone of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), has cautioned governors against politicizing education by establishing universities they cannot fund.

The union made the call in a communique on Friday after its Zonal Meeting in Maiduguri.

The communique was read by its National Vice President, North East, Mr Abdulkadir Isa.

It  called on all levels of government to invest massively in education, saying that the neglect and poor funding of universities by some governors to the detriment of teaching and research is a matter that required urgent attention.

The communique condemned what it described as provocative, the formula used for sharing the N22.1 billion released by Federal Government for the Earned Allowances at the rate of 75 per cent for teaching staff and 25 per cent for non teaching staff.

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It called for an urgent review on the development.

“The union is concerned that the non-teaching units of the universities are being usurped by teaching staff in violation of the condition of service and establishment procedures.

“On pending cases of earned allowances, the union noted that both the Federal and State Governments still owed the arrears of earned allowances derived from the  Federal Government/SSANU 2009 agreement. We demand for the full payment and implementation of same, in staff monthly salaries.

“We are against the forceful retirement of our members at the age of 60 in violation of 65 years agreement, in state universities,” the communique said.

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It also raised concern over insecurity and inflation in the country and called for urgent measures to address them.

The communique added that there was also an urgent need to for legislation to be made to include representative of unions in university governing councils.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the National President of the SSANU, Mr Mohammed Haruna, alongside other officials from universities in the North east attended the meeting. (NAN)