C’River: Teachers protest 3 months’ unpaid salaries in Yala LGA

By Ike Uchechukwu, CALABAR

Primary School teachers in Yala local government area of Cross River on Friday protested against their unpaid three months salaries.

The teachers, armed with placards with various inscriptions, the teachers also decried selective payment of salaries, as well as short-payement.

According to the teachers who protected round major streets and ended up in the council secretariat, they are being owed September 2025, January, and February 2026 salaries.

Spokesman of the protesting teachers identified himself as Mr Peter Okpe regretted that payment of salaries that ought to be the right of every worker have been politicized in the council area.

He explained that in September 2025, over 95 percent of Primary school teachers in Yala were not paid their salaries, while the remaining were shot-paid.

Okpe noted that the most intriguing thing about the whole situation is where some teachers receives debit alert as soon as they are credited.

He further alleged that some of those that were paid were due to their relationship with some highly placed persons.

According to him, this has been our plight since September 2025, where only about 72 out of the over 300 primary school teachers in Yala local government were not paid their salaries.

“Even those that got their salaries were shot-paid while others got debited as soon as they were credited with their salaries.

“I can tell you that some teachers, among those that were paid, got N3000 and some N700 as salaries. How possible is this.?

“We have some teachers who called their godfathers and got paid immediately by the council.

“They have given us all manner of excuses for this pitiable situation, and yet, the same thing applies to our January and February salaries.”

Okpe declared that if the situation is not addressed, the teachers may not resume next term with the pupils.

Meanwhile, the government has blamed the teachers for their predicament.

Prof. Stephen Odey, Commissioner for Education, who spoke with Vanguard explained that there was glitch during payment, as some were overpaid while others were underpaid.

Adding that the payment was not a total blanket, he further alleged that most of the teachers that were not paid at all were most times not at their duty posts.

“Whenever auditors come around for verification, some of the teachers are always not around.

“I am from Yala, and I can tell you it is only those that refused to subject themselves to the authority that have these issues.

“The place of teachers during office or school hours is the classroom, but these people that are having issues now are the ones found wanting.

“The government is not owing salries to any worker across the state, it’s just a glitch that occured , and there payment is done by Ministry of Local government.

“The challenge is not only in Yala , there are pockets of other local government that were also affected , so it’s not unpaid salaries, he said.

A government official who pleaded anonymity said the non payment of these salaries to system glitch.

According to him, several of the teachers received way and above their salaries in September 2025 and attempt to get them to come forward for this to be corrected have been difficult.

“Some got N1 million, and there have been several plea for them to come forward for these errors to be corrected, but they have refused.

“This same protesting teachers had their October, November and December 2025 salaries paid without issues.

“I can assure you that this matter is being resolved,:” he said.

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