The Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Polytechnics (SSANIP) has lamented what it described as a troubling mix of rising insecurity, biting economic hardship, and repeated delays in implementing welfare commitments owed to polytechnic workers across the country.

This position was made public by the union’s National President, Philip Adebanjo Ogunsipe, during the 78th General Executive Council meeting held at the Comrade Olaitan Oyerinde Hall inside Labour House.

Ogunsipe, while addressing union leaders and members, said the state of workers’ welfare in the polytechnic sector had worsened from neglect and avoidable administrative bottlenecks.

“For years, promises are made, assurances are repeated, yet nothing is delivered. This is not governance. This is provocation of peace,” he said.

The union president condemned the continued delay in releasing the sector’s reviewed Schemes and Conditions of Service and the failure to conclude the renegotiation of the 2010 agreement despite multiple assurances.

“Silence us with action, not speeches, or you will meet us on the picket line,” he warned.

Ogunsipe described the delay not as oversight but as an avoidable affront to workers’ patience and industrial harmony.

He also condemned the unilateral submission of revised schemes of service by the National Board for Technical Education to the Federal Ministry of Education, stating that the unions were neither consulted nor carried along.

“This is not a process error. This is a trust assassination,” the Union president declared, adding that the move represented a disturbing departure from previously agreed procedures.

The SSANIP leader noted that promotion benefits, salary review arrears, wage award entitlements, and the implementation of the new national minimum wage had remained incomplete despite workers delivering on their duties.

Ogunsipe said the backlog of unpaid benefits was weakening workers’ morale and creating a brewing industrial fault line.

“These are not a favour. These are earned wages denied,” he said, urging the federal government to immediately correct course before tensions escalate.

The National Secretary of the union, Nura Shehu Gaya, echoed the concerns, describing non-teaching staff as the backbone that keeps academic institutions running, yet consistently left out of critical welfare decisions.

“Non-teaching staff are the backbone ignored. The country must stop pretending that education systems run themselves,” Gaya said, adding that the problem was not the productivity of workers but the indecision and administrative inertia of authorities.

He encouraged workers to remain dedicated despite the unresolved issues.

“Your professionalism is not the problem. Their delays are,” he added.

The National Trustee of the union, Godwin Ikhide, urged labour unions within the sector to resist division and remain united in demanding accountability and fairness.

“There is no weapon formed stronger than a unified workforce. Do not hand them the bullet to fire at you,” he said.

Ikhide added that unity among labour was power, not rebellion, advising that a collective struggle for common goals must remain the sector’s guiding compass.

‘We Love Nigeria, We No Longer Trust Delay’

Branch Secretary of the Federal Polytechnic of Oil and Gas Bonny, Comrade Pepple Sidney, said the emergency GEC meeting was convened to deliberate on the issues undermining workers’ welfare and to seek institutional and government collaboration to tackle systemic constraints affecting non-academic operations.

Sidney said the meeting was not symbolic but a call for actionable justice.

“We did not come here for photographs. We came here for justice with timelines,” he said.

During the meeting’s closing moments, a senior member summarised the collective frustration in a brief but weighty remark.

“We love Nigeria. We no longer trust delay,” the GEC member said, capturing the increasingly serious mood of the council as the meeting ended.