The Federal Government has been urged to recall the 58 sacked lecturers of Usmanu Dan Fodiyo University, Sokoto.

The Joint Action Committee of the non-teaching staff in tertiary institutions in Nigeria made the appeal on Thursday.

The JAC comprises National Association of Academic Technologists, Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities.

Spokesperson for the committee and President of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, Mr Samson Ugwoke, made the appeal at a news conference in Abuja.

President of NASU, Comrade Ladi Iliya, and her NAAT counterpart, Sani Sulaiman, also signed the statement presented at the press conference.

He said the 58 lecturers were sacked with their retirement benefits forcefully paid into their accounts while the case was still in court.

Ugwoke said the immediate past Vice-Chancellor of the university had only four months to leave office when he sacked the lecturers.

According to him, all efforts by the unions, through letters and visits to the VC, were to no avail.

Ugwoke also named Abia State University, where “our members have gone to court over the staff school issue.”

He added, “We are worried that the NUC (national Universities Commission) in concert with vice-chancellors, in some cases, have either sacked or threatened to sack the teachers/non-teaching staff, who are our members and bona fide universities’ staff, without recourse to our union or renegotiation.

“We have written several letters on this, copies are attached, and also met several times with government functionaries on this, to no avail. Only promises.

“Our prayer is that non-teaching agreement on staff school should be respected.”

Ugwoke said in the agreement, signed by the three unions, it was stipulated that government, through the universities councils, should fully fund university primary schools.

He said the universities should, without recourse to government for funding, provide infrastructure for the secondary schools.

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