Emmanuel Adeyemi, Lokoja

The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Kogi State wing, said Primary school teachers in the state are dying in their hundreds of hunger and starvation over nonpayment of their salaries.

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Addressing newsmen in his office, Comrade Ayodele Thomas, said teachers are being owed between 15 and 25 months salary, a situation he said has created some critical health challenges for some of his members.

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The NUT chairman, who said the directive of the state governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, that teachers’ salaries must be treated as a first line charge, with not less than 45 percent payment, expressed surprise that the local government administrators flagrantly refused to adhere to the directive and, instead, are paying teachers between 20-30 percent of their monthly salaries.

Following this directive, he said the Special Adviser on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs swiftly set up a committee to implement the governor’s directive, but regretted that the local government chairmen, along with the local government treasurers and some top government functionaries, are frustrating the efforts.

He showed a letter from the Head of Service to the state government dated October 5, 2017, entitled “computerising and centralising of the payroll of the state/local governments’ workforce and pensioners“ where the local government administrators and other stakeholders were specifically directed to pay teachers’ salaries as a first line charge from the Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC).