As the coronavirus pandemic lingers on, private school teachers have been left jobless, which has affected their earnings seriously. The teachers have therefore taken to social media to beg Nigerians for alms to feed their families.
For most of the teachers, the last time they received any semblance of payment from their schools was in April with many getting between N5,000 and N10,000.
With the school lockdown in its fourth month and no sign of schools’ reopening following the surge in COVID-19 cases in the country, the fear that they and their loved ones may die from hunger should they continue to be silent on their ordeals.
Their cry for help at the weekend moved well spirited Nigerians on micro-blogging site, Twitter, to do giveaways solely targeting private school teachers. One of such gestures was that initiated by influencer, @Mazigburugburu1 which indicated that N400,000 will be shared at N25,000 each to 16 private school teachers who must show proof that they were private school teachers.
Stating why they should be chosen for the gift, some of the teachers posted their identity cards, pictures with pupils, last credit alert received among other things.
One of them, Afolabi Awodeyi, a Post Graduate Diploma (PGD) holder in Computer Engineering who said he lectured at a Polytechnic before the lockdown claimed he earned N7,000 per course in a semester (four months.)
“I have not won anything before. This is one of my lecture notes in the Polytechnic where I earn N7,000 for a course in a semester not a month. I take four courses every semester and that amounts to N28,000 per semester not per month. A semester= four months
“I would love to go into catfish farming and production and I have done my survey and financial analysis but to even see startup capital is another problem,” he said.
