Primary school teachers in the Yala Local Government Area of Cross River on Friday protested their unpaid three-month salaries.

Armed with placards bearing various inscriptions, the teachers protested on major streets and ended up at the council secretariat, decrying the selective payment of salaries and shortfalls.

They said they were owed September 2025, January, and February 2026 salaries.

The spokesperson for the protesters, Peter Okpe, explained that in September 2025, over 95 per cent of primary school teachers in Yala were unpaid, while the remaining were short-paid.

He further said that some of those who were paid were due to their relationships with highly placed persons.

According to him, only about 72 out of the over 300 primary school teachers in the local government were not paid their salaries.

“Even those who got their salaries were short-paid, while others got debited as soon as they were credited with their salaries.

“I can tell you that some teachers, among those who were paid, got N3,000 and some N7,000 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,” said Mr Okpe.

He stated that if the situation is not addressed, the teachers may not resume teaching next term.

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

The state’s commissioner for education, Stephen Odey, who spoke with journalists, alleged that most of the teachers who were not paid were not always at their duty posts.

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

“I am from Yala, and I can tell you it is only those who refuse 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 who are having issues now are the ones found wanting. The government is not owing salaries to any worker across the state,” he explained.

However, Emmanuel Onah, press secretary to the Yala council chairman, attributed the nonpayment of these salaries to a system glitch.

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

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

“These 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 noted.

(NAN)