WE'RE DYING OF HUNGER,
STARVATION, KOGI TEACHERS
LAMENT
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
K ogi chapter of the Nigeria Union of Teachers
has said primary school teachers in the state
are dying, in their hundreds, of hunger and
starvation over non-payment of their salaries.
Addressing newsmen in his office, yesterday,
the state Chairman, Comrade Ayodele Thomas,
said teachers are being owed up to 15 to 25
months salaries, a situation he said has
created some critical health challenges for
some of members.
The NUT chairman also said Governor Yahaya
Bello’s directive, that teachers’ salaries must
be treated on First Line Charge, with not less
than 45 percent payment, was surprising as
local government administrators have
flagrantly refused to adhere to the directive.
Instead, he said they 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 local government treasurers and
some top government officials, are frustrating
the effort.
He showed an October 5, 2017 letter from Kogi
state Head of Service, entitled: “Computerizing
and centralising of the payroll of the state,
local governments workforce and pensioners”
where local government administrators and
other stakeholders were specifically directed to
pay teachers salaries as first line charge from
the Joint Account Allocation Committee.
Thomas reiterated that the local government
bosses still refused to comply with the
directive.
He said efforts to meet with the governor, to
let him know about the latest development,
has not been successful even as he alleged
that the Secretary to the State Government,
Dr. Folashade Arike, of not responding to three
different memos sent by the NUT to her on the
issue.
While pleading with the state governor to look
into their plights of teachers by directing the
local government administrators to comply
with his directive, he said government officials
should stop playing politics with teachers’
salaries.
The NUT boss said some children and wards
of teachers in the state can no longer go to
school due to lack of payment of salaries.
He also claimed that while other categories of
workers in the state collect their minimum
wage, primary school teachers have been
denied theirs.

Dats what U get wen Ur governor licks ass and fights lost battles for a living