Bauchi, Osun, C-River, others to join  this week

By Favour Nnabugwu & Johnbosco Agbakwuru

ABUJA — THE national leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, said yesterday that the labour movement was in support of some state chapters of the union embarking on strike over backlog of unpaid salaries by some of the outgoing governors.

Some state branches of the NLC had threatened to down tools today and join Plateau State that had gone on strike following the inability of some of the state governors whose tenures expire this week to pay workers salaries for several months.

Some of the states that had threatened to commence strike this week include Bauchi, Osun, Cross River and some local government areas in Rivers State.

Confirming this to Vanguard yesterday, General Secretary of NLC, Dr. Peter Ozo-Eson said that though the strike was not declared by the national leadership of labour union, the states that have decided to proceed on strike have the backing of the national body.

Eson said some of the states in the north, Cross River, Osun and some local government areas in Rivers State are among the states that have threatened to embark on strike this week to join Plateau state that had been on strike for some time now.

It was gathered that some of the state governors had lavished state resources during the just concluded general elections, even as they were owing workers salary for several months.

NUT threatens strike

File photo: Nigerian workers during a rally

On its part, the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, says it will soon direct its members to go on strike in states that have not paid teachers their salaries for over two months.

Speaking on the proposed strike, Mr. Michael Olukoya, President of the union, said in an interview with Vanguard in Abuja that the union would not fold its arms and watch state governments treat their members as second class citizens in their country.

He decried the attitude of the offending governments, saying the union was not going to take it lightly with them.

According to him, “such practice portends academic danger in those states as the teachers would not be motivated to do their best when teaching the students.”

He stressed that every worker deserved his wages, adding: ”The working condition of a teacher is the learning condition of a child. Academic danger is looming in those states where salaries have not been paid and we will soon give directive to the affected states to immediately proceed on indefinite strike.

“If a teacher does not collect his or her salary, he or she cannot perform at optimum level.  In Nigeria, the full salary of a teacher is inadequate to meet his needs and and yet he is being owed; that’s not fair. We gathered that Abia, Benue, Plateau, Bauchi and Kogi states are owing their primary school teachers’ salaries of more than two months.”

Gross revenues decline to lowest —FAAC

Meanwhile, the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, said that gross revenues declined to its lowest in recent times to N282.06 billion in April 2015, which according to the committee chairman and Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Bashir Yuguda, was due to frequent shutdown in oil production facilities which continued to impact negatively on crude oil revenues as well as the fall in global oil price.

Vanguard findings  show  that the N388.34 billion federal allocation distributed to the three tiers of government for the month of April is the lowest recorded in well over two years.  The last time such dismal performance was recorded was in 2007 and 2008 during the global economic crisis when oil prices fell to $38 per barrel.

Gross revenues have been declining steadily since the oil prices started its downward slide since last year. From N480 billion realised in December 2014, revenues have declined steadily throughout this year: N416.09 billion in January, N401.46 billion in February and N315.04 billion in March before hitting the lowest – N282.06 billion – in April.

Despite the persistent decline in revenues, the three tiers of government have been sharing allocations above the average monthly revenues. In December 2014, it was a total of N580.4 billion, N500.13 in January, N522.05 billion in February, N435.06 billion in March and N388.3 billion in April.