The revised retirement age and years of service requirements for teachers in the nation were authorized by the Federal Executive Council in January 2021 at 65 years and 40 years, respectively.
It was discovered that benefited teachers underwent fitness assessments prior to enrollment in the new program, and those who were determined to be unfit were given the go-ahead to continue working after retirement.
However, the instructors, who number over 1,000, complained that they had been forced to wait an interminable amount of time for their pay while their colleagues in the Ministry of Education were being paid.
When asked to remain anonymous, a teacher who started in April 2021 said that the delayed payment had caused her a great deal of stress.
“This pain is too much, she cried. Think about reporting to work every day since I started in April 2021, but I’ve never received any pay. Four of my children are still in school, and I am a single mother. When money became scarcer, my situation deteriorated. There doesn’t seem to be much hope elsewhere, so my children and I am living off of what we can scrape together. Allow them to pay us; we beseech you.”
“Those in the Federal Ministry of Education are being paid their salary whereas we under the Ministry of Defence have not been paid since we joined,” claimed another teacher who started in January 2022 but did not want to be recognized.
“Let them inform us if our services are no longer required rather than retaining us unpaid. It is immoral not to pay people for at least two years when you consider the level of hardship that exists in the nation.”
The Ministry of Defence’s Victoria Agba-Attah, Director of Press, denied any knowledge of the situation when reached.
When our correspondent phoned the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Ibrahim Kana, he was told that the teachers’ non-payment was peculiar but was sent to the ministry’s director of education.
Afolake Taiwo, the director of education for the ministry, denied any wrongdoing on the part of the organization and added that steps were being made to guarantee their payment.
“It’s not true that we haven’t been doing anything or spoken to them,” she retorted.
“You understand that it is not possible to speak with everyone, but I have been in contact with every zone coordinator. Even I am impacted.
The ministry is not to blame for the error. In order to make sure that this problem is resolved as quickly as possible, I have been visiting the Head of Service’s office. The automated government payment system is what’s causing the issue; it deletes data when you leave the service. We’re working to make sure they’re re-added to the IPPIS. We want to beg them to have more patience.”
