Strike: Council chairs reluctant on N70bn arrears despite Wike’s intervention

The General Secretary of the FCT wing of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Comrade Margaret I. Jethro, has given details of the reason why the standing committee of the union’s meeting with the FCT Minister, Nyemso Wike, on Tuesday ended in deadlock. Jethro, who spoke with Daily Trust in her office at the Teachers […]

The General Secretary of the FCT wing of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Comrade Margaret I. Jethro, has given details of the reason why the standing committee of the union’s meeting with the FCT Minister, Nyemso Wike, on Tuesday ended in deadlock.

Jethro, who spoke with Daily Trust in her office at the Teachers House in Gwagwalada on Wednesday, said the council chairmen’s unwillingness to agree to pay 60 per cent despite the minister promising to pay N40 per cent of the over N70bn required to settle the minimum wage arrears of the primary school teachers led to the deadlock.

She explained that Wike asked the chairmen at the meeting to work out modalities to pay N60bn in three installments.

Sh said the union was not happy when the council chairmen said primary school teachers were not entitled to peculiar allowance, noting that, “But the union argued on the contrary because the allowance was approved for workers on the consolidated salary of which LEA teachers in the FCT are included.”

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She further said, “The minister appealed to the union to suspend the ongoing strike while they worked out modalities for the release of funds for possible payment of the minimum wage arrears at the end of the month.”

 

She also said that Wike told the union that the reason for the delay in paying LEA teachers salary for December, 2023, was as a result of the FCTA’s exit from the Single Treasury Account (TSA), but that he assured the union that it ould be sorted out shortly.

 

 

 

She added that, “And given the absence of any written agreement on the modalities for the payment of the offer made to the union and the past experiences with the council chairmen in terms of lack of commitment to agreements, the union has nothing to hold onto to warrant the suspension of the strike action, as such, the ongoing strike remains until the coast is clearer. Once beating, twice shy.”