Some disengaged teachers of Zaria Local Government Area of Kaduna State on Thursday staged a peaceful protest demanding payment of their entitlements.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the sacked teachers converged at the local government secretariat in Zaria city.
Leader of the protesters, Muktar Abdulqadir-Shitu told NAN that they were forced to resort to such action in view of the inability of Zaria Local Government to pay outstanding entitlements.
He said some of the entitlements include leave grants for 2016 and 2017.
“Some local governments have paid their disengaged staff their leave-grant but Zaria is yet to do so, some of the sacked teachers had started suspecting the leadership of Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), Zaria branch.
“Some of these members were aggrieved, up to the extent of planning to beat up the NUT chairman saying that he connived with the council’s authority, but we had to intervene.
“However, in our discussion with the management of the council today, they have assured us that they are compiling the list of disengaged teachers for payment soon,” he said.
Abdulkadir-Shitu listed other demands of the sacked workers to include non payment of gratuity and end-well allowance by Kaduna State Government.
“Therefore, we are appealing to Kaduna State Government to kindly consider our plight and pay us our entitlements and they should release the end-well money to the union for onward payment to beneficiaries.
“The end-well is money being deducted from workers’ monthly salary and had nothing to do with state government but we don’t know why the money is still in government procession?
“We are still pleading, government should kindly do everything possible to come to our aid, we have children, we have dependants who solely rely on us for a living,” he pleaded.
NAN recalls that Kaduna State Government had in November 2017 sacked about 22,000 primary school teachers for allegedly failing to score 75 per cent pass mark in an examination it conducted for them.
The government has since recruited about 11,000 new teachers in March 2018 but lamenting that some of them could not write acceptance letter, thereby leading to cancellation of the appointments of such teachers.
When contacted for comment, the Director Personnel Management of the local government, Nasir Harande, who was accused by the sacked teachers of constituting stumbling block to the payment of the entitlements, declined comment.
However, addressing the teachers during the protest, the Acting Education Secretary, Zaria Local Government, Malam Ahmed Haruna called on the protesters to exercise patience as the leave-grant would be paid soon.
Haruna assured that there were frantic efforts to ensure that all the key players in the payment of the leave-grant discharge their role efficiently. (NAN)
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