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The Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) of Lagos State Polytechnic on Monday laid siege on the Council Chambers of the Polytechnic in a bid to air their grievances over what they claim to be the de-migration of staff salaries.
Workers were seen with placards, sitting, waiting and chanting outside the chambers which was well guarded with armed security men.
The Deputy Registrar, Public Relations Unit, Mr Olanrewaju Kuye who spoke to our correspondent on the issue said that the management’s action was a “realignment of nomenclature” rather than a demigration which he says is a more demeaning allusion.
“We are doing the correct alignment of salaries structure. It is not demigration as claimed by the Union.” He said.
“The state government wrote the National Board for Technical education (NBTE) Kaduna that gives us correct information and mandated the management to go and do correct realignment of salaries structure and that is what we’ve done, we are not demigrating anybody.”
“The correct realignment of salaries means that if we have paid you wrongly we are putting you rightly, if we have paid you highly we are putting you rightly, if we have short paid you, we put you rightly and that is what the management has done”.
He added that before the implementation of the realignment of salaries structure, the rector of the Polytechnic, Mr. Olayinka Sogunro held a town hall meeting with the Union and explained to them to stand of the Lagos state government.
Efforts to speak with the President of the Union however proved abortive. But one of the aggrieved staff, Mr Ayanda Abiodun who also spoke with our correspondent said, “The agitation that started today is hinged on the resistance by the staff not to allow the management pay us demigration salaries. That is the essence of this protest.”
“We don’t want to be paid based on the new arrangement of the management to demigrate our salaries. For over two years the management have failed to engage the Union. Every member of the staff is affected”.
Another non-academic staff who aired his own view on the issue while pleading anonymity said “I felt personally that the management of the polytechnic will want to give peace a chance and will equally want to respect the rule of law.”
“The court made a pronouncement that status quo should remain depending on the result of the pending case in court. We cannot just fold our hands and some people just feel they can violate the court order at will and they will not get consequences, this is the consequence of what the management is doing. Right now, the staff are willing and ready to march to force them to reverse this madness of demigration they started.”
When asked if the strike would affect academic activities in the coming days, Kuye insisted that it is a very small issue which would soon be resolved and that academic activities would definitely go on unaffected. Another aggrieved staff who spoke on the basis of anonymity however differed on the issue stating that the intention of the protesters is to shut down the school and that the display was a protest which could metamorphose into a full-blown strike in the coming days in which academic activities could be stalled.
