500 teachers barricade Cross River governor’s office over unpaid salaries

In less than two weeks, over 500 science teachers in Cross River State again barricaded the Governor’s Office with mats and wrappers, protesting the alleged removal of their names from the government’s payroll.

They also raised the alarm over non-payment of their September and October 2019 salaries, adding that “We have turned to beggars and doing odd jobs in a bid to survive on daily basis.”

It would be recalled that the teachers had earlier on November 5 protested, blocked gate to the Governor’s Office and denied everyone entry and exit.

Narrating their ordeal, Spokesperson for the science teachers, Kenneth Bisong, said that they (teachers) did not understand the rationale behind the Governor Ben Ayade-led administration in its decision to stop paying them and remove their names from the payroll.

“We are among the best brains as far as Science teaching is concerned in Cross River State. Our recruitment in 2015 was done by Educom, an Indian firm with a proven track record for standard and excellence.


“Initially we did not know that anything happened until our colleagues started getting paid and our people were not. We went to the relevant offices to find out what happened; we discovered that our names have been removed from the payroll by government.

“Our names were removed from the payroll in September; we started since 2015. We are about 500 teachers affected and it could be more.

“Government did not follow the service rules, we do not know what the government wants to achieve by removing our names from the payroll and treating it with injustice.

“We are the livewire of secondary schools. Does the government intend to engage quacks? All we want is the payment of our September and October salary arrears”.

When contacted, Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to the Governor, Christian Ita, said it was just an audit by government and no one was sacked.

“Nobody has been sacked. It is just an audit, a lot of people who joined the civil service in 2015 did so through the back door. There is no cause for alarm, no one has been sacked.