No One Should Owe Teachers, No Excuse – Wike

The Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has said it was unfortunate that council chairmen in the capital city refused to pay teachers their salaries, leading to strike action.

Wike said there cannot be any justification for owing teachers. According to him, it could be permissible to owe other workers but not teachers.

The FCT Minister stated this on Monday during a media chat in Abuja. He disclosed that he would have sacked the council area chairmen if they were appointed by him.

“It was shocking to me when I got the information that the teachers have gone back to strike. I felt so embarrassed. Now, I have a limit. What do I do? I can’t sack them because they were not appointed by me, they were elected. And I said, look, what I should do is to make sure that I withhold the 10% allocation of the IGR and then set up a committee to make sure that if these funds are released, the money has been paid to the workers, to the teachers. It’s very unfortunate. And I keep on telling people that, look, even if you were all people, you were all workers, it shouldn’t be teachers. How do you feel our children are at home? How do you feel? There’s no excuse,” he said.

Asked if withholding the 10 percent internally generated revenue of the council chairmen was not in conflict with local government autonomy, he responded:

“You see now? You see the problem that we’re having now? You are talking about autonomy now. Autonomy, when money has been released to you. Yet, you are depriving people of their wages. And then you want me to fold my hands and then allow our children to be at home because you want to have local government autonomy. You see, these are the things that we are talking about.”

Naijaonpoint reported that FCT primary school teachers embarked on strike to demand payment of the approved ₦70,000 minimum wage.