Primary school teachers in Yala Local Government Area of Cross River State staged a protest on Friday over unpaid salaries for three months, NAN reports.
Armed with placards bearing various inscriptions, the teachers marched through major streets and converged at the council secretariat to voice their grievances. They alleged that salaries for September 2025, January, and February 2026 remain unpaid, while some colleagues received only partial payments.
Mr. Peter Okpe, spokesman for the protesting teachers, decried what he described as the politicization of salary payments. He explained that in September 2025, over 95 percent of primary school teachers in Yala were not paid, and a few who were received only partial amounts.
Okpe further alleged that some teachers received immediate payments due to connections with influential individuals. He said, “Even those that 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 that were paid, got N3,000 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.”
He warned that if the situation is not addressed, teachers may refuse to resume next term with pupils.
Responding, Prof. Stephen Odey, Cross River State Commissioner for Education, attributed the non-payment to teachers’ absence from duty. “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 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 salaries to any worker across the state,” he explained.
Mr. Emmanuel Onah, Press Secretary to the Yala council chairman, attributed the delayed payments to system errors. He said, “Several of the teachers received way above their salaries in September 2025 and attempts to get them to come forward for this to be 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. 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.”