The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has declared that strike action appears to be the most effective way to communicate grievances to the Bola Tinubu-led government.

The statement was made by Makolo Hassan, National President of SSANU and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today.

Hassan confirmed the unions’ commitment to a planned protest scheduled for Tuesday, despite the potential negative impact on the university system.

He indicated that if the government clears the four months’ withheld salaries, the unions would reconsider their protest plans.

“Once we put down tools there will not be light, water, and a lot of things will not function in the system, which we have been trying all the while to avert. But it seems that the language the administration understands the most is strike,” Hassan explained.

He said the unions are demanding the immediate release of the withheld salaries, alongside addressing issues related to the renegotiation agreement of the N50 billion approved for payment and the inconsistencies of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPS).

“Our members are hungry. Our members are the downtrodden. They live in poverty.

“The first in line is the four months withheld salaries. By the time I leave here and our members say yes, we have started receiving alerts, then we will sit back and adjust because the other issues are renegotiating the agreement of the N50 billion approved to be paid, the inconsistency of the IPPS,” Hassan stated.

If the four months’ salaries begin to drop then the situation will change,” he added.