Schools closed in teachers' strike

Schools across Nigeria were closed on Monday as teachers joined a public service strike called by the Nigeria Labour Congress to press the government to pay the new minimum monthly wage of 3,000 naira (US $33), news organisations reported. AFP quoted teachers as saying they had been told by the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) that the strike would last indefinitely, and media reports said most primary and high schools in the country's biggest city, Lagos, Kano in the north, Enugu in the east and Port Harcourt in the southeast were closed on Monday. The union's secretary-general, Gabriel Falade, was quoted as saying some primary school teachers currently earned 2,000 naira (US $22) a month. "All workers in the public service sector are supposed to get the minimum wage," he said. "Until teachers are paid the new wage, they will stay at home." As the public service strike entered its third week on Monday, a leading politician, Abdulkadri Balarabe Musa, the former governor of Kaduna state, told the independent daily, 'The Guardian' at the weekend that the minimum wage being demanded was a "slave" wage: "The primary issue is that government must pay a fair and living wage to its workers."