The federal government through the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Defence owes about 600 teachers who benefited from its service elongation package 23 months arrears.
Some of the affected teachers expressed regret that even though they elongated their service since January 2021, they were not paid salaries until November 2022, and even at that their arrears are still being withheld despite the reflection on their payslips.
“We are over 400 education officers who are beneficiaries of the elongation policy which extended the retirement period of teachers to 65 years or 40 years in service, effective January 2021.
We were asked to continue with our jobs but weren’t paid a dime till November 2022 with arrears of over 23 months outstanding.
Our salaries were reinstated in December 2022 but when we got our payslips, we discovered they included the total arrears owed but our accounts weren’t credited.
We asked questions but up till now no acceptable answer from IPPIS. We mobilised ourselves all over Nigeria, collated our information with a copy of some payslips, and submitted,” the teacher said.
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In the face of this, the concerned teachers under the federal ministry of defence have written a letter to Tahir Mamman, minister of education, on October 13, 2023, in which they appealed for intervention on payment of salary arrears of pioneer education officers of the harmonised retirement age for teachers.
“Sequel to the non-payment of our various accumulated salary arrears, we wish to state that we complied with the directive in the Circular FME/HRM/S234/1 dated 26th January 2021, and continued to discharge our duties loyally and efficiently. Notwithstanding, our salaries were stopped on attainment of 60 years or 35 years in service.
“The salaries were reinstated for most of us in December with payments of the month’s salaries but without the accumulated arrears. We later discovered that the payments of the arrears were reflected in our pay slips, whereas they were not paid into our various bank accounts.
“In our quest to know the cause of the staggering discrepancies between the amount of money on the pay slips and the actual amount paid into our accounts, the association of senior civil servants of Nigeria in conjunction with the federal ministry of education, in April, 2022 requested us to submit the said payslips and the respective bank account statements to the IPPIS unit of the ministry to facilitate the payments of the arrears.
The arrears were not paid despite the submission of the documents requested.”
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Recall that service elongation for teachers was introduced by the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
The beneficiary teachers are in some of the country’s unity schools, schools owned by the military and paramilitary.
On January 20, 2021, the Federal Executive Council approved a Bill that sought to increase the retirement age and the service years of teachers.
Adamu Adamu, minister of education, then explained that the essence of the bill was to give legal backing for the approval of the new retirement age of 65 from 60 years for teachers and extend their period of service from 35 to 40 years.
According to Adamu, the bill also sought to introduce bursary awards, special rural posting allowances, and other items that would encourage brilliant Nigerians to take up teaching
In April 2022, Buhari signed the harmonised bill into law backdating the implementation to January 2022.
However, the federal Ministry of Education in a memo dated January 26, 2021, told teachers in its unity schools not to retire but to continue in service ahead of the presidential assent by Buhari.
The memo was tagged “FME/HRM/S234/1” and it read, “This is to inform you that the Federal Executive Council at its meeting of Wednesday, 20 January 2021 approved 65 years and 40 years as retirement age and years of service, respectively, for the teaching profession. Implementation of this new scheme is with effect from 1st January 2021.
“It should be noted that the new retirement, years of service is not automatic, as officers will be required to demonstrate fitness after medical examination and those found to be unfit will be advised to retire.”
