Teachers Threaten Oyo Govt, Issue 72-hour Ultimatum Over Unpaid Salaries

Funke AzeezMay 16, 2019

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The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Oyo State chapter, on Thursday, issued a 72-hour ultimatum to the Oyo state government to clear and settle the backlogs of salaries owed its members.

The union while lamenting unpaid salaries of primary school teachers, gave the state government 72 hours notice of embarking on indefinite strike if the situation was not reversed.

NUT Chairman, Comrade Z.T Adedoyin and Secretary, Comrade N.M. Abdullahi, stated this in a statement issued after a meeting of the enlarged standing committee of the union, held at the Teachers’ house, Oluyole, Ibadan.

The union, while thanking the outgoing governor over approval of backlogs of promotion arrears to workers in the state, lamented over complementary allowances of such promotion.

The union also listed issues worrying members of the union as non-implementation of the approval and accompany promotion benefits to the primary school teachers by the Oyo State Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC).

Others are: delay in payment of salary to primary school teachers, delay in the promotion of grade level 14 to 15, continued withholding of 2018 leave grant and delay in the clearance of teachers allegedly accused of illegal promotion.

The union said, “On non-implementation of the approval and accompany promotion financial benefits to the primary school teachers by the Oyo State Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) while other civil servants including the secondary school teachers have started enjoying the benefits since February 2019.

“This is very unfair, considering the fact that, teachers in public primary schools have forgone many years of arrears of promotion benefits dated back to 2010 when the last promotion exercise was done and effected, they are still subjected to unnecessary delay in receiving what is due to them and which have been enjoyed by other workers in the state.

“The union registered our displeasure over delay in payment of salary to primary to primary school teachers, while all other workers in the state have received April 2019 salary.

“Primary school tea hers are always paid in arrears. A situation where primary school teachers are treated like second class citizens in the state is pitiable and unacceptable. The extended standing committee in-session urged the government to balance up the arrears of payment of primary school teachers to bring them at Apr with their counterparts in other sector in the state.

“We observed with dissatisfaction of the intentional and tactical delay in the promotion of primary school teachers who are on GL 14 to GL 15, which has been gazetted since 2015.

“This is indeed very disheartening and has dampen the morale of the affected teachers. The union could no longer fold it’s arms while disintegration sets in due to unwarranted dichotomy that the non promotion of these teachers could cause among the rank and files of our members.

“Continued withholding of 2018 leave grant to the primary schools teachers by the SUBEB despite monthly staggered payment of this grant to all other sectors and MDAs, TESCOM inclusive.

“This practice of payment in the primary school sector has made the motivation of the primary school teachers to be on low ebb, a situation which is not good for development of education in the state.

“Appealed to the state government on teachers who “were wrongly alleged of illegal promotion should be officially cleared through the released of government white paper on the report of a committee put in place by the office of the Head of Service (HoS) and the accumulated deductions from their salaries over a period of 12 months should be refunded to them forthwith.”

The union thereafter gave the state government 72 hours to address the issues, failure of which it will direct its members to stay at him as from Monday.

“The union resolved during its meeting and called on the state government to address the demands within 72 hours, hence “the union may have no other options than to direct our members to stay at home as from Monday, May 20 2019.

“The strike action will be indefinite until our demands are met,” it said.