Ado Ekiti — The Ekiti State University (EKSU) yesterday proscribed all labour unions within the institution due to continuous protests that disrupted academic and non-academic activities in recent time.
The institution, also, suspended all academic activities with immediate effect while all students were directed to return home until its management issued a directive asking them to resume.
These directives were contained in a statement the Head of EKSU Directorate of Information and Corporate Affairs, Mr. Bode Olofinmuagun issued yesterday in response to industrial conflict rocking the institution.
The unions in the institution had been protesting against the management for alleged non-payment of salaries and some specific allowances, among others.
Consequently, the protests triggered a total lockdown of the university, which paralysed academic, non-academic and commercial activities within the academic community.
The university proscribed all the four unions with immediate effect. The unions comprise Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Senior Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) and National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT).
The statement said: “This is as a result of the continuous disruption of lawful activities on campus which have endangered lives and property in the last one week.
“Consequently, to guarantee peace and orderliness on campus, all the four unions – ASUU, SSANU, NAAT and NASU – are hereby proscribed with immediate effect”.
The management directed all students to vacate the campus with immediate effect.
From Monday, the protesting lecturers and other non-academic staff had occupied the university causing a standstill of traffic and activities on campus for over two hours. They sang solidarity songs and vowed to increase the intensity of the protest day by day.
The unions were aggrieved that the state government failed to meet their demands for payment of three months salary arrears dated 2018, six years of earned academic allowances and unremitted cooperative deductions among other demands.
The Chairman of ASUU, EKSU Chapter, Mr. Kayode Arogundade accused the state governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi of shunning several appeals from the union and other intermediaries.
“As of today, Ekiti State Government is only subventing EKSU by 50% of its monthly wage bills, without paying any considerable attention to capital grants and infrastructural developments.
“This has led EKSU administration to ingloriously indulge in financial infractions, such as subversion of tax deductions to paying salaries; diversion of pension deductions to paying salaries and fund diversion from units of the university.
“This is just the beginning; we are going to do this until we occupy the government house. After all, we are asking for our rights. If we go on strike the children of ordinary Nigerians will be home, the VC and chairman of council will be at home spending our money, the governor will be at home spending our resources.
“Before we go on strike, we will make this state ungovernable for them, we’ll make this school ungovernable for them.”
The unions vowed to go beyond the usual strike action as they have threatened to make the university and state ungovernable until their requests are granted.
But the state government has blamed the situation on over-bloated recruitment done by the immediate past administration and the inability of EKSU to meet its own portion of subvention.
Special Adviser to the governor on Tertiary Education, Mr. Sikiru Eniola pleaded with the protesters to embrace dialogue and also find alternative funding channels in the face of dwindling revenue.