From Tony Osauzo, Benin
Primary School Teachers in Edo State who have participated in the last strike action declared by the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), have accused the state government of cutting their February salary over the strike.
The teachers had embarked on strike over non implementation of series of their demands by the state government. The industrial action was however, called off after five days.
The government had following the strike, threatened to apply the “No work No pay Rule”. It followed up the threat with a directive to Education Secretaries of the 18 Local Government Councils in the state, to process the deductions from the February salary of the primary school teachers.
Lamenting the deduction yesterday, a head mistress in one of the public primary schools in Benin City, who did not want her name in print, said N25,000 was removed from her salary for the month of February over the last strike action.
She disclosed that the state government has circulated a memo, directing all head teachers to re-apply and go through a test.
“About 25,000 was removed from my February salary and the same thing applied to other teachers but the deduction was not uniform. I was also reliably informed that all head teachers in the state have to re-apply and sit for a test. I was told that they have planned to drop some head teachers”, she said.
Other teachers also claimed that ranging from N6,000 to N23,000 were deducted from their salaries.
A junior staff in one of the schools lamented that after the deduction, what was left of his salary will not be enough to feed his family for the month.
It was learnt that some categories of teachers from senior to junior cadres who are indebted to the government through servicing of loan facility went home without pay due to the deductions.
According to some of the teachers , the no work, no pay rule is a device to weaken the NUT and create a friction between the union and the teachers.
When contacted for comment, Edo State Secretary of NUTT, Moni Modesty-Itua promised to call back but failed to do at press time yesterday.
