Teachers in Kwara State on Friday staged a peaceful protest over their exclusion from the newly approved 30 per cent Peculiar Salary Allowance granted to other categories of state workers.

The protesting teachers converged on the state secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Teachers in Ilorin, where they described the decision of the Kwara State Government as unfair and discriminatory, insisting that teachers deserved the same treatment as other civil servants in the state.

Speaking to The PUNCH on behalf of the protesters, Segun Afolabi said the 27.5 per cent Teachers’ Specific Allowance was a statutory entitlement and should not be merged with, or used as a replacement for, the newly approved 30 per cent Peculiar Allowance.

“Other states are implementing the 30 per cent Peculiar Allowance, and Kwara should not be an exception. Teachers’ earnings in Kwara State are far below the economic reality of the country,” Afolabi said.

He added that inadequate remuneration was negatively affecting the quality of education in the state.

“Education is suffering because teachers are not well paid. All civil servants in Kwara State were paid November 2024 palliatives, but teachers were exempted,” he said.

According to Afolabi, worsening economic hardship has forced many teachers in the state to rely on loans to survive.

“The economic hardship is escalating and affecting teachers the most. In Kwara State, teachers depend solely on loans to stay alive. The quality of education is low because teachers are not properly attended to,” he added.

He explained that the protest was organised to demand the immediate implementation of the 30 per cent Peculiar Allowance for teachers, in line with what other state workers are currently enjoying.

Reacting to the protest, the Kwara State Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, Yusuf Agboola, appealed to Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to urgently include teachers in the new allowance in the interest of fairness and industrial harmony.

Agboola acknowledged that teachers were deeply hurt by their exclusion from the allowance.

“There is no gainsaying that we are in pain and our hearts are disturbed by the missing gaps in the payment of the newly introduced Peculiar Allowance, from which Kwara public school teachers were excluded,” he said.

However, he dismissed claims that the leadership of the union had failed in its responsibilities to teachers, describing such views as misleading.

He explained that negotiations on the Peculiar Allowance were conducted alongside discussions on the Teachers’ Specific Allowance, which was recently approved after more than a decade of abandonment.

“The union demanded during negotiations that the 30 per cent Peculiar Allowance be extended to teachers in addition to the 27.5 per cent and 21 per cent TSA already under consideration,” he said.

“We categorically told representatives of the state government that the Peculiar Allowance should also be extended to teachers.”

Calling for unity among teachers, Agboola urged them to remain calm and continue to work collectively towards resolving the outstanding issues.

“A united people can never be defeated,” he said.

The PUNCH had earlier reported in December that the national leadership of the Nigeria Union of Teachers criticised the Kwara State Government over what it described as persistent neglect of teachers’ welfare.

In a letter dated November 13, 2025, and jointly signed by the National President of the union, Audu Amba, and the Secretary-General, Dr Clinton Ikpitibo, the NUT accused the state government of failing to implement the 27.5 per cent Teachers’ Specific Allowance and the National Harmonised Teachers’ Retirement Age Act, 2022.

The letter, which was acknowledged by the Office of the Governor on November 17, warned that teachers in the state could embark on a full-scale strike if the issues remained unresolved.

Efforts to obtain a reaction from the Kwara State Commissioner for Education and Human Capital Development, Dr Lawal Olohungbebe, were unsuccessful, as he did not respond to WhatsApp messages sent to him nor return calls made to his phone.