Benue teachers’ strike enters seventh month

The leadership of the Nigerian Union of Teachers
(NUT) has accused the governor of Benue State,
Gabriel Suswan, of insensitivity to the plight of
primary school teachers in the state, just as the
indefinite strike embarked on by the teachers
entered its seventh month.
The teachers’ grievances stemmed from the state
government’s inability to implement the N18,000
National Minimum Wage which other primary
school teachers in other states have been enjoying.
This is despite an initial pledge and a Memorandum
of Understanding (MoU) that has been signed by
the State Deputy Governor, Steven Lawani.
Even after the agreement to pay, the action of the
deputy governor in pledging and appending his
signature to the MoU is believed not to have gone
down well with Suswam, who claims the state has
no funds to carry the wage bill.
The governor had reportedly proposed cuts in
workers’ salary, in which case he suggested a five
per cent cut for junior staff, 10 per cent for senior
civil servants and 25 per cent for political office
holders to enable the government pay the salaries
of striking primary school teachers.
General Secretary of NUT, Ikpe Obong, who
lamented the situation, told Sunday Independent
exclusively that government keeps reneging on
implementation of agreements even when all
parties to a labour dispute must have been
resolved.
“Primary school education in Benue is really
pathetic, government really needs to sit up and be
proactive, because the one of Benue State its very
unfortunate that an agreement that has been
entered into between the NUT and the government
of Benue State signed by the deputy governor,
nobody is doing anything about it.
“They just jettison it, they make rubbish of
negotiation and dialogue, for instance right now
nobody has the sympathy of calling the teachers go
and dialogue because those teachers have
dialogued for thousands of hours and no result
came out of it, that is the kind of situation we are
finding ourselves,” he stated.