Crisis rocks Oyo NUT over extension of Chairman’s service years

A crisis has ensued in the Oyo State chapter of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) over the extension of service years for the chairman, Mr. Raji Oladimeji, by the state government.

Supreme News reports that the extension of Oladimeji’s length of service by three years, purportedly by Gov. Seyi Makinde, did not go down well with some members of the union.

It was gathered that the NUT chairman, who was elected into office last year for a four-year tenure, was expected to have retired from service in May.

He, however, secured an extension of his service years, apparently to allow him to complete his term of office.

Though some elders within the union have agreed to wade in on the crisis, the crisis has, however, refused to abate due to the insistence of the aggrieved members that the chairman should quit his position as NUT chairman.

Supreme News also reports that the aggrieved members of the union had written petitions and even gone to some radio stations in Ibadan to express their grievances over Oladimeji’s refusal to leave office after the expiration of his service year.

One of the aggrieved teachers, Mr Sulaimon Salaudeen, said the crisis was due to the refusal of the chairman who was to have retired and vacated office as NUT chairman but who was claiming that he had been given an extension of service.

“If at all he has been given an extension of service, does that allow him to continue as the NUT chairman? That is what the teachers are fighting for,” Salaudeen said.

He, however, admitted that some elders of the union had waded in to settle the matter.

A former Secretary of NUT in the state, Mr Olu Abiala, in an interview with NAN in Ibadan on Wednesday, said that stakeholders within the union had been called upon to resolve the crisis.

He said that the extension of the service year for the NUT chairman could be regarded as circumstantial, as he did not meet with the governor to solicit for the extension.

Rather, he said that Oladimeji only met with the governor to press for the implementation of a new career structure for teachers in the state, which would see their length of service increased to 40 years or 65 years of age.

Abiala, also a former Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in the state, said the extension of service was to allow the NUT chairman to finish the struggle he had started.

He said that the governor thought that Oladimeji should also be a beneficiary of the extension of service being planned for the teachers in the state.

The veteran labour leader said the grouse of the aggrieved members against the chairman was that he should have been more concerned with the extension of service for all members rather than being concerned with his matter alone.

He, however, said that if Oladimeji had to wait for the time the governor would implement the extension of service for all the teachers in the state, he would have retired and would, therefore, not be able to benefit from it.

“Before accepting the letter extending his service year, the NUT chairman made consultations with some elders who asked him to accept the offer so that he would be able to complete the struggle he had started.

“If he had rejected the offer, it would amount to an act of ingratitude.

“We all should rather commend the governor for doing so. In actual fact, the National Secretariat of NUT had commended the governor for this act of benevolence, as it is rare,” he said.

Abiala, who said that the governor had the prerogative to grant an extension of the service year to anybody he felt deserved it, cited some civil servants who had also benefited from such gestures in the past.

Speaking on the development, the NUT chairman said that the matter was an in-house issue that was being resolved.

Oladimeji stated that the agitation for the extension of teachers’ service years was a national issue.

He said that the union had been making efforts to persuade the state government to domesticate the bill signed into law by former President Muhammadu Buhari, which extended teachers’ length of service to 40 years and their retirement age to 65.

The NUT chairman said that he had decided to exit office but for the intervention of the national leadership of the union, which believed in his capacity to ensure the implementation of the act in the state.

He said when his service year was extended, the approval letter was taken to all the stakeholders and organs of the union, adding, however, that the elders had already waded into the matter.

“There is no division in the union. It is a kind of agitation that is expected in any decent society.

“It is not an issue that has split the NUT. The union is indivisible. They have listened to our elders, and the elders have invited them for a roundtable,” Oladimeji said.