Students of Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic (AkwaPoly), Ikot Osurua in the Ikot Ekpene local government area have expressed concerns that the ongoing semester examinations could be shelved and the school calendar truncated unless the government addresses the grievances of academics and other workers‘ unions, which have set April 22, 2025, to call their members out on strike.
It was gathered that the Joint Committee of Unions (JCU), comprising the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Polytechnics (SSANIP), issued the notice after their emergency meeting at the ASUP auditorium of the polytechnic.
They explained that the resort to strike became necessary following the government‘s failure to address issues of emoluments and welfare of the institution‘s workers as regards the present minimum wage table (CONTEDISS, CONPCASS, and CONTISS), which they noted were produced without the input of unions and the non-implementation of the 35 and 25 per cent salary increment for staff of the state-owned tertiary institutions.
According to the resolutions arising from the JCU congress, the aggrieved unions made the following demands: „That the government should approve three domestic servants for staff on CONTEDISS 13/CONPCASS 07, four domestic servants for staff on CONTEDISS 14/CONPCASS 08, and five domestic servants for staff on CONTEDISS 15/CONPCASS 09.
“That there should be separation of CONTEDISS table from CONPCASS table or the sole adoption of CONPCASS table in the State-owned tertiary institutions, and that „the 35 and 25 per cent salary increment for staff in the State-owned tertiary institutions be implemented.“
The chairman of ASUP, Comrade Nyeneime Raphael, frowned at the government for ignoring the union despite several letters sent to the government through the Head of Service (Hos), Elder Effiong Essien.
She recalled, “On January 28th, 2025, following the release of the new minimum wage tables by the State government, the JCU, chaired by our immediate past Chairman, Comrade Eteyen Uko, discovered numerous irregularities in the document.
“Without hesitation, we rejected those tables and communicated our position to the governor through the HoS, yet that communication was ignored.
The unions representing the tertiary education sub-sector throughout minimum wage negotiations were completely sidelined. We were not consulted, and even when we submitted our input through the NLC Steering Committee and the Public Service Negotiating Council, our voices were ignored.
“Worse still, when we analysed the released tables, it became painfully clear that the state government had failed to apply the 35% and 25% salary increments approved by the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission (NSIWC) on the 14th of September, 2023,“ lamenting that other states had since implemented the structures, wondering why Akwa Ibom should be an exception.
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