THE leadership of Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) has renewed call on the Federal Government to adopt the First Line Charge for payment of salaries of primary school teachers across the country.
NUT National President Comrade Audu Titus Amba, made the call following the recent Supreme Court judgment scrapping the State and Local Government Joint Account and granting financial autonomy to local government councils.
By the Supreme Court judgment, local government councils would now take responsibility for the payment of the salaries of primary school teachers.
Nigerian teachers, however, have been opposed to leaving payment of their salaries with local government administrations, which they noted from previous experience, had led to a situation where teachers were owed salaries for several months until the creation of the State and Local Government Joint Account in 1994 to address the challenge.
The position of NUT was made known by its national president, Amba in an interview with the Nigerian Tribune in Abuja, on the sidelines of one-day capacity building workshop for state chairmen and secretaries of the union, organised by NUT in partnership with Education International (EI) and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) under the framework of the Global Response to Privatisation and Commercialisation of Education project.
In June 2024, the Supreme Court of Nigeria scrapped the State and Local Government Joint Account ordering full financial autonomy for the 774 local government areas in the country, with direct payment of funds to local councils from the federation account without involvement of states.
When asked if the union is comfortable with the scrapping of the State Joint Account and implication of financial autonomy granted to local government councils, Amba clarified that the union was not against the local government autonomy, saying LG autonomy is a welcome development since that is one of the ways development can reach rural dwellers faster.
He said: “We are all from different local governments and everyone will be happy to see development happening in his or her own local government.
“I would like to go back and see what the local government is doing in terms of welfare, road construction, primary health care and primary education, to my people.
“However, the reason why we are scared is that, going by previous experiences, local government funds were misused to the point that the payment of teachers’ salaries became an issue.
“I was part of it in those days, when we were there for more than nine months without payment. We were forced to embark on a national strike for more than four months to push for the emergence of the current decision, where we will have the salaries of the primary school teachers being taken from first line charge sustained.
“We are happy with the local government autonomy but the question remains, what will the fate of primary school teachers be concerning salary?
“What we are saying is that, it should still remain at first line charge. We are in partnership with the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) already and we are all singing the same song because what affects us, affects NULGE.
“From experience, once these resources are made available, the local government chairman becomes something else, diverting salaries of teachers to different things. You can’t claim that you are working when you are not paying salaries. Salary should be the first thing to be sorted so that the system can be sustained at the local government level.
“That has been our agitation. Yes, we are happy with local government autonomy but we insist that the payment of the primary school teachers, local government workers and traditional rulers salaries be deducted at first line charge and paid as and when due,” Amba stated.
