From Victor Seyi, Ilorin
Academic and non-academic workers with Kwara Colleges of Education in llorin, Oro, Lafiagi and College of Arabic and lslamic Legal studies, llorin on Monday commenced an indefinite strike action over non-payment of salaries arrears.
The Kwara government is owing the workers of the four affected tertiary institutions six months’ salary arrears.
Chairman of the Committees of Unions of Tertiary Institutions in the state, Comrade AbdulKareem Amuda_Kannike announced the commencement of the strike at an emergency meeting with workers under the unions in llorin on Monday.
He said the commencement of the strike has become imperative since several efforts to allow the state government attend to their plight had failed.
The chairman said the directive of the state government that the four affected Colleges to use their internally generated revenue to settle the salary arrears was impracticable.
He said several letters and series of meetings with the state government’s representatives to avert the strike action ended in deadlock.
Amuda-Kannike said “since the state government had declared its inability to pay the salary arrears following dwindling of monthly federal allocation, strike is the next option”.
He directed academic and non-academic members of staff of the four colleges to stay at home until further notice.
The Dream Daily gathered that the meeting where the commencement of the strike was announced was attended by representatives of all the unions from the four institutions.
Reacting to the strike on behalf of the state government, the Senior Special Assistant to Governor AbdulFatah Ahmed on Media and Communication, Dr. Mutideen Akorede condemned the strike.
“The state government is surprised that they will resolve to strike when they know the non-payment of their subventions was due to drop in allocation from the Federal Government”, Akorede said.
He said the monthly allocation to the state government has dropped from N3.2 billion N1.7 billion.
He said the subventions that were not paid to the affected colleges were not for payment of salaries, stating that the colleges should pay salaries from their internally generated revenue.
The governor’s aide described the plight of the striking workers as unfortunate and urged them to go resume work for the sake of their students
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