Workers in Benue state are not happy over the inability of the state government to pay them backlog of unpaid salaries and have therefore embarked on an indefinite strike. Why did the government allow the issue to degenerate to this level? It is unfortunate that we have found ourselves where we are today due to the numerous challenges but this situation is not limited to Benue state, it affects the entire country. Nigeria went through a recession and just came out of it, though it is still very fragile but we are trusting and believing God that things will work and the economy will blossom and grow and things will be better. We took over power at a time that the main source of revenue to the states went down as a result of the drastic fall in oil prices. Gov Samuel Ortom Let me also say that I inherited N69billion arrears of salaries, pensions and gratuity. It was a very big problem but government is a continuum and we had to work with it. And the wage bill then was around N8.2billion without teachers’ minimum wage. When we came we said teachers should ideally be treated better than any other worker because of the strategic roles they play in the society, especially in the area of moulding the character of our children. And so, we said there shouldn’t be salary disparity, they should also enjoy minimum wage with the hope that things will improve and we went ahead and implemented it, only to discover that what was coming in was not enough to cater for just payment of salaries right from the onset.
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