Nigeria: Governor Chides Buhari Over Sack Of 22,000 Teachers

Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose has chided president Muhammdu Buhari over his support for proposed sacked of 22,000 teachers in Kaduna state.
The teachers whose fate is currently hanging failed competency test conducted by the state governor, Mr. Nasir-el Rufai.

The Governor publicly declared the teachers incompetent on their ways out of the state government employment.

In what some political actors had described as inhuman, President Buhari gave his node for the sack of the teachers over their failure to pass the competency test.

Buhari’s action made governor Fayose who is the chair of the governors under the umbrella of the country’s major opposition party, PDP, to condemned act, saying the move will compound the woes of poor citizens.

The governor said; “By openly supporting the sack of about 22,000 teachers in Kaduna State, President Buhari has approved the loss of jobs as the official policy of the All Progressives Congress (APC) instead of the creation of three million jobs per year that the party promised Nigerians.”

In a statement issued in Ado Ekiti, and made available to Caracal Report, the Special Assistant on Public Communications, Lere Olayinka, reiterated Fayose commitment his total commitment to the welfare of workers in Ekiti State, saying; “Not minding the State’s inability to pay salary as at when due, owing to paucity of fund, I will not sack any worker under any guise.”

The governor said it was sad that President Buhari, whose government promised to create jobs for Nigerians, is supporting the sending of about 22,000 teachers into the labor market. The governor claimed the president is responsible the loss of millions of jobs in the private sector and collapse of several companies.

He also insisted that the President’s position was a pointer that labor leaders in the country should prepare for mass sack of workers by the APC governments both at federal and State levels.

“Here in Ekiti State, the immediate past APC government used competency test to demote many secondary school principals, vice principals, and primary school head teachers, leading to the sudden death of many of them. The government then tried to force the competency test on the teachers, but they resisted.

“Today, students in Ekiti State are still being taught by the same teachers that the APC government said were not competent and the students were the ones whose performance gave the State first position in NECO in 2016 and 2017. The State also moved from 26 percent performance in the West African Examination Council (WAEC) examination in 2014 to 36.5 percent in 2015, 42 percent in 2016 and 74.86 percent in 2017.

“Therefore, instead of hiding under competency test to sack teachers, the APC government both at States and federal government levels should come to Ekiti State and learn how we were able to get optimum performance from the same set of teachers the immediate past APC government in the State labeled incompetent and harassed with a competency test.

Fayose also argued that it was not the right of any state government to set exams for teachers, saying, the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria was set up to regulate the teaching profession in the country.