Wike, NUT bicker over unpaid salaries

The Rivers State Chapter of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, last week, issued a 21-day ultimatum  to the Rivers State Government to clear the arrears of salaries owed its members or risk industrial action.
The arrears of salary owed  teachers in the state would reach five months at the end of this month.
The state’s chairman of the union, Lucky   Kpogene Dumna’ata, threatened that at the end of the ultimatum, teachers in the State, would withdraw their services from the classroom.
The NUT chairman, who spoke at the end of the union’s executive council meeting in Port Harcourt, urged teachers in the state  to go back to class, saying that they  would withdraw their service  at the end of the 21-day ultimatum if the government refused to pay the arrears.
The Rivers State Commissioner for Education, Professor Kenaye Ebeku, last week, pleaded with the teachers to shelve  their planned industrial action. He said that the governor was willing to address the issues concerning their outstanding salary.  
The Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, few months ago, set up a biometric  audit committee to audit and authenticate the genuine number of teachers in the state. 
Over 20,000 teachers were  engaged by  the state government and as much as   N5bn was spent every month for the payment of  salaries  of the  entire state’s workforce. The governor said that teachers salary in the state  used to take  half of the state’s N5bn monthly wage bill.