BY Favour Nnabugwu

Teachers across the country have accused the National Teachers Institute, NTI, of shortchanging them of N1.44 billion allowances due them under the Federal Government’s Millenium Development Goals, MDGs, training programme.

President, Nigerian Union of Teachers, NUT, Mr. Michael Olukoya, told newsmen in Abuja, yesterday, that while each of the 125,000 teachers trained was entitled to an allowance of N14,000, only N2,500 was disbursed by the NTI. Olukoya said teachers would no longer endure a situation where they were short-changed and deprived of their entitlements.

He said: “Teachers were to be paid a stipend of N14,000 per participant for the six-day training programme organised for teachers nationwide by NTI under the auspices of 2011 MDGs programme. The institute rather shortchanged the teachers by paying N2,500 to each participant.

‘This offer the union believes is a slap on the sensibilities of teachers in Nigeria. In modern day Nigeria socio-economic predicament, the NTI is offering N416 daily to a teacher in Nigeria to cater for his transportation and accommodation.
“The question here is what has happened to the balance of N11,500 per participant, amounting to a total of N1,437,500,000 for the 125,000 participants.”

It would be recalled that NTI had said 125,000 teachers were to have benefited from the N3.7 billion training in 2011 MDGs-funded project through the institute. The institute claimed to have spent over N18 billion to train teachers in secondary and primary schools in the country for 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.

However, the NUT President said: “As the umbrella body for all the teachers in Nigeria, NUT on behalf of the participants have not only rejected this slave pay, but also condemned the action of NTI, which grossly underrated the worth and integrity of the teachers. “It is equally our submission that even the N14,000 is objectionable.”

Meanwhile, the union has indicted 13 states for failing to implement the 2008 agreement they had with NUT on 27.5% peculiar allowance for teachers. The states are Cross River, Kebbi, Lagos, Ekiti, Kogi, Katsina, Delta, Zamfara, Niger, Abia, Nasarawa, Enugu and Benue.