From Isa Dangana, Minna
Primary education, the bedrock of learning, is for now facing major threat because of percentage payment of salaries to teachers.
Explaining the sad and ugly situation to The Triumph in Minna, recently, the chairman of Niger State council of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Comrade Akayago Adamu Muhammad said that unless the issue is addressed quickly, it may lead to imminent collapse to educational system.
Percentage payment of teachers’ salaries, the NUT chairman explained, has thrown teachers into untold hardship and created a circumstance of demoralization and hopelessness among teachers.
He said that teachers in the state, instead of being pace setters and model, have been reduced to un-ceremonial beggars and neglected species among their colleagues in the state civil service.
He called on the Local Government Councils in the state to stop the anti-labour and wage slavery payment to primary school teachers “in order to guarantee effective service delivery to our educational system.”
The union accused the state government for contracting an agreement which made the union called off strike embarked by teachers to press for improved condition of service, but the state government failed to honour the deal.
Also speaking, the union’s Principle Assistant Secretary, Comrade Labaram Garba accused the state government of “being heartless and insensitive to the plight of teachers.”
Comrade Garba threatened that: “We are gradually being pushed to the wall, we will revolt soon. We shall clear all hurdles to reach where we want to be.”
