TEACHERS BEGIN INDEFINITE STRIKE IN EBONYI
REPORTER: CHUKWUBUIKE MADU
Teachers in seven local government areas of Ebonyi State have embarked on an indefinite strike.
The leadership of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) declared the strike following alleged failure of Chairmen of the affected local government areas to follow the appropriate E-payment channel in paying salaries of primary and junior secondary teachers in their areas, which has affected their take home pay for about three months.
The teachers lament they are owed despite series of verification carried out by the local governments.
Since October 2024, local government chairmen in Ebonyi State began series of verification of primary and junior secondary school teachers as well as local government workers across the thirteen local government areas of the state, with one of the verification degenerating into a protest, resulting in the mal-handling and arrest of some of the protesting teachers.
The reason for the verification was to fish out nonexistent (ghost) workers as the Chairmen claimed that steady rise in the pension and salaries of workers at the same time had made the wage bill of the councils unbearable.
Speaking with Radio Nigeria, the Chairman, NUT, Ebonyi State Council, Comrade Francis Ekechi, listed Edda, Ishielu, Ohukwu, Ebonyi, Ezza South, Ezza North, and Ivo as local government areas where the strike was ongoing.
Comrade Ekechi said they were not against verification but alleged there were fundamental flaws in the processes adopted for the exercises so far conducted, which had created confusion in the payment system, with some of the teachers still owned three months, some two months while some others received half salary.
“The worst of all is that after carrying out the verification, they went ahead to pay through different means, like paying direct to the banks, some use POS to pay the teachers, and as a result of that they complicated issues.
“The appropriate platform where they are supposed to pay our teachers is the UBEB e-payment.
“The records were not taken by the e-payment so as a result of that even when they claimed they paid, there was no evidence of payment and the teachers continued to ask for their salary,” the NUT Chairman narrated.
Comrade Ekechi said the Chairmen were told to pay teachers the arrears after a dialogue with the state government, and recently, the union gave the local government councils a seven day ultimatum to pay up or face industrial action but seven of the thirteen local governments defaulted.
Also, the National Rep. of NUT, Ebonyi State, Comarde David Elom, pointed out that due to the refusal to use the UBEB E-payment platform, some of the council chairmen paid net salary into the teachers’ accounts while withholding the deductions made from their gross salary, a situation that had put the teachers into financial distress.
“These local government chairmen made so many deductions and paid only net and held gross and when they held all those deductions banks now went ahead to take the net they paid from the workers and they (teachers) are not having anything now.
“Banks in Abakaliki now have even had their meetings, they no longer access loans to local government workers because they no longer guarantee their repayments,” Comrade Elom lamented.
Efforts by Radio Nigeria to get the reaction of Chairman Association of Local Government of Nigeria, ALGON, Ebonyi State, Comrade Augustine Uburu on the matter failed as he angrily cut the phone call put across to him and refused to respond to a text message to that effect.
Also the State Commissioner for Primary and Secondary Education, Professor Paul Nwobasi did not pick our call and neither did he respond to a text message for his comment on the strike.
