Academic activities have been disrupted at the Ebonyi State College of Education, Ikwo, following a one-week warning strike declared by lecturers of the institution over poor conditions of service.

The lecturers, who are agitating for the implementation of a living wage, payment of pensions and gratuities to retired staff, and other improved conditions of service, had issued 14- and 7-day ultimatums to the state government and school management to address their demands before embarking on the warning strike on Monday.

When Daily Sun visited the college, its entrance gate, offices, lecture halls, and laboratories were under lock and key, with the campus deserted.

The second semester examination of the college, which was scheduled to commence this Monday according to the school timetable, could not be held.

Only a few students were seen in the institution, loitering.

One of them, Uchenna Nchoko, expressed sadness over the strike.

“We are actually preparing for our exams, but how they are responding to the exam, we do not like it again. Most of us have many things to cover up this week, next week. But now, it’s like we are going to quit the school because it is not actually giving us what we expected,” he stated.

He urged the state government and management of the college to address the demands of the lecturers to enable them to continue the examination.

The Chairman of the College of Education Academic Staff Union in the school, Dr Ama Nnachi, said the lecturers are on strike as a result of the failure of the school management, vis-à-vis the government, to pay them the 2024 salary structure.

He lamented that since 2010, the lecturers have been receiving salaries based on an N18,000 minimum wage, describing their conditions as pathetic.

“By implication, as I’m talking to you, there are some of our staff who have worked for 22 years, 20 years, and their salary is not up to N30,000.

“Their salary is not up to N30,000. In this 2026, when a litre of fuel is N1,500, when transportation costs have skyrocketed, and because of that, even the one that they were paying, they were not paying it fully. It was fragmented, 87%. Imagine the difference from that period to now and our members are dying.

“We are dying almost on a daily basis. So we are demanding that the state government should pay us the 70% minimum wage as applicable in all colleges of education.

“Another thing that you should know is that our retired members are not paid. So if you work 35 years, you just go home and die. It is not supposed to be so,” he revealed.

When contacted, the Provost of the college, Professor Benedict Mbam, dismissed the cancellation of the second-semester examination.

He said the students are not in school because they were asked to go for Easter holidays.

He also dismissed the claim by the lecturers that they are receiving below N18,000 as salaries.

He described the allegations by the lecturers against him—that he has not been showing concern or presenting their welfare to the state governor—as unfounded.

“Everything about the union, they call it fights. This is in discussion or dialogue or whatever, or communication; they say fights. That is their language.

“If I show you my communication with His Excellency, the Governor, you know that it is not true. I carried their agitation to this end.

“What they may say is that it is not quickly yielding results. But to say that I have not is a lie; if you want, I will show you letters here in communications with the government.

“Those who are receiving N100,000, N300,000, they are not mentioning those ones. You are paid according to your grades.

“It is according to your grades. And what they don’t know, they don’t look at the payslip, they don’t look at the deductions. Some people are on loan in three places.

“Borrow from bank, borrow from, what is it, it is part of bank and the cooperative. At the end, your salary will sometimes be below N10,000. But we are mindful of one thought.

“We have one thought according to civil service law. So if you are receiving N60,000 and at the end you have N20,000, it means you are on loan, and that is not your true salary,” he said. (The Sun)