Primary and secondary school teachers in Kwara State, through the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, have given December 1 notice of indefinite strike over unpaid three months salaries.

But the state chairman of Association of Local Government Chairmen, ALGON, in the state, Lateef Okandeji, pleaded for understanding with the government, attributing the problem to the drop in the allocations.

NUT state chairman and secretary, Musa Abubakar and Idris Ola, respectively, in a statement yesterday, said the union "is constrained to cry out loudly on the non payment of salaries of teachers in primary and junior secondary schools in Kwara state for three months."

The statement noted that teachers should not be used as the scape goat for the decline in the federal allocations to states and the local governments, stressing that, "after all, this category of teachers did not enjoy any special privilege when there was surplus in the treasury of the government.

"The primary school sub sector has been facing a lot of avoidable agony over the years partly as a result of the attitude of the local governments not to give priority to the funding of primary education. We view this neglect by the government as a clear indication of the insensitivity of government to the plight of over twenty five thousand teachers in this category."