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Public primary school teachers in Oyo State on Monday commenced an indefinite strike to press home their demand for the payment of promotion arrears between 2011 and 2016 among other demands.
The Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Teachers(NUT), Oyo State wing, Mr. Samson Adedoyin, said the strike became became necessary because the meeting with the state government failed to yield the desired result.
He said: “We have been on this for long, we have written letters, we went on a three-day warning strike and we even issued a three-day ultimatum as of last week Tuesday, but it all failed.
“Although, we were invited on Friday by the state government but all discussions were centered on appeal that government will do something, but the appeal was not taken by our members.
“Our demands include payment of promotion arrears from 2011 to 2016 for which all other sectors have been paid since February.
“Also, it is only primary schools that are being paid in arrears in terms of salary, all other sectors have collected their April salaries but primary school teachers salaries for March have just been released.
“We don’t know why we are being treated like that and we want such ill-treatment to stop.”
However, the immediate past chairman of NUT in the state, Mr. Niyi Akano, stated that only primary school teachers were on strike.
He said if the state government fails to address the demands, teachers in secondary schools would join the strike in solidarity.
Akano further stated that the industrial action would remain indefinite until the demands of the teachers were met.
Newspeakonline gathers that all public primary schools teachers in Ibadan complied with the directive of the union.
Additional reports by News Agency of Nigeria(NAN)