Over 7,000 teachers in public primary and junior secondary schools in Kogi State have appealed to Gov. Yahaya Bello to look into the issu...
Over 7,000 teachers in public primary and junior
secondary schools in Kogi State have appealed to Gov. Yahaya Bello to
look into the issue of non-payment of their salary for the past eight to
39 months.
The Kogi teachers made the appeal in a communique issued
at the end an emergency meeting of the Basic Education Staff
Association of Nigeria (BASAN) held in Lokoja on Monday .
The group traced the teachers’ plight to the staff
screening exercise the government embarked upon since 2016, lamenting
that the affected teachers had turned beggers in order to feed
themselves and family members.
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According to BESAN, the affected teachers are among over 23,000 of its members in the state.
The communique, jointly signed by Mr Onotu Yahaya and Mr
Mohammed Sule, Acting Chairman and Secretary of the Kogi State chapter
of BESAN, also bemoaned the refusal of the state government to fully
implement the N18,000 minimum wage to teachers in the basic education
sector.
Onotu and Sule stated that their counterparts in the
senior secondary school cadre and other state government staff had been
enjoying the N18,000 minimum wage since Dec. 2011, wondering why
teaching and non-teaching staff at the basic education sector were not
being fully paid.
The communique urged the government to put a stop to the
payment of 35 to 50 per cent salary to its members, insisting that they
deserved full payment of salary like other workers in the state.
“Several of the basic education staff retirees are yet
to access their monthly pensions besides non-payment of their gratuity,”
the statement said.
They expressed worry over what incessant movement of
payment of their salary among the State Universal Basic Education Board,
local government councils and sometimes, consultants, saying that this
had mitigated against efforts to ascertain actual staff strength in the
sector.
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It also raised concern over the poor state of basic
education infrastructure in schools across the state, warning that the
development was an impediment in meeting the desired productive
curriculum delivery.
“We are passionately appealing to Gov. Bello for
intervention on the above inflammatory issues for the change mantra of
the next level and change of narration of this critical sector of
education,” the communique added.
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