No plan to call off strike - NUT

Dipo Laleye, Minna - 22.07.2008

Hope for an amicable and quick resolution of the dispute between the Nigerian Union of Teachers and the Federal Government was dimmed on Monday when the NUT declared that there was no plan to call off the strike until the Federal Government concedes to its demands.

The NUT stand came as the Niger State government also made a u-turn on its earlier decision not to pay the Teachers Salary Scale even if the Federal Government released the circular as demanded by the NUT.

“We are apprehensive on going back to work because for 17 years, we have negotiated this issue and now, we have passed the stage of negotiation,” the National Secretary of the NUT, Comrade Obong Ikpe Obong, declared in a chat with newsmen in Minna, Niger State, on Monday.

“The Nigeria Union of Teachers has done a lot, we did not just rush into the strike, we believe that having dialogued for 17 years, everybody will be satisfied that we have done enough” the national secretary declared.

He said further that the union was apprehensive of going back to work because they had been deceived several times.

Comrade Obong, who was in Minna to attend the opening of a workshop organised by the union in partnership with the Canadian Teachers Federation, said that if government addressed the issues the way the union wanted, “then we will go back, if government shifts grounds we will now look at the position and see that there is room for further consideration.”

Obong said that the union believed that it had passed through all the processes of negotiation and that it was because the TSS circular had not been released, that is why they are where they are, adding that unless the circular ‘ is released, we will continue to be where we are.”

The union’s scribe said the TSS was for all professional teachers and the Federal Government was only misinforming the public that teachers in the unity schools were not members of the NUT.