NULGE faults teachers’ position on LGA autonomy

NULGE President Comrade Ibraheem Khaleel in a recent press briefing in his office in Abuja said NUT has failed to do a thorough job on where to blame teachers’ problems, stressing that the constitutional responsibility of the local government area is participatory.  Khaleel said other tiers of government also contribute in paying primary school teachers […]

NULGE President Comrade Ibraheem Khaleel in a recent press briefing in his office in Abuja said NUT has failed to do a thorough job on where to blame teachers’ problems, stressing that the constitutional responsibility of the local government area is participatory.  
Khaleel said other tiers of government also contribute in paying primary school teachers and that both unions had agreed to send a proposal to the National Assembly for primary school teachers to be paid directly from the Federation Account, so that the local government can use its funds to carry out its other functions when  it gets full autonomy.
“But if teachers because of their fear for their salaries are now saying there must be no democracy in local government, then they are not doing justice to other sectors in the local government.
“We made several attempts to make the leadership of NUT understand and come to roundtable with NULGE with a view to fashion out ways to address the issue of primary school teachers as well as making local government functional.
“We had series of meetings under the supervision of the leadership of the NLC. At some point we reached a consensus which we accommodated in our memos and all our submissions to government and the National Assembly to the effect that we don’t have any problem with making primary teachers’ salary first line charge.
“So, if NUT is still hammering on the fact that LG system should be abandoned just because of their salary, in my opinion that is selfish. The truth is no democracy anywhere around the world can grow without a vibrant system of local government because the independence of each individual citizen lies in the independence of each local government.”