Workers on Wednesday shut down Kaduna to protest the sack of
21, 000 primary school teachers by the Kaduna State Government. The News Agency
of Nigeria (NAN) reports that hundreds of civil servants led by President of
the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Ayuba Waba marched to the state House of
Assembly to register their protest.
The NLC president
said the competency test used as excuse to sack the teachers lacked credibility
and was unacceptable. “It was a smokescreen to just sack workers,” he said,
adding that legitimate institutions mandated to organise such examinations were
ignored by the government. “Teaching is a profession in Nigeria, we have
teacher training institutions and Teachers Registration Council, why are they
not the ones conducting the test? “This is because they have sinister motives;
that is why they didn’t use those institutions. “They are doing this just to sack
and reduce workers and we will not accept that,” the NLC president said.
“Any exercise built
on faulty ground cannot stand; this is our position,” he stressed. Waba alleged that the state government also
plan to sack 15,000 core civil services and 5,000 local government workers. “By
putting all together and their families, up to one million people will be
affected by the sack. We will not accept that. “Therefore we will stand against
this exercise until justice is done,” he said. The NLC president told workers
in the state to unite and confront the situation and save themselves from “this
agony.”
Meanwhile,
Northern Coordinator, Nigeria Union of Teachers, Bulama Abisu, has also
condemned the sack of the teachers. Abisu
who led NUT executive members from the 19 northern states on solidarity visit
to the state, called on President Muhammad Buhari to intervene. “Teachers get
the least salary in most states in the north, even the meager salary is not
paid as when due with huge number of teachers still being owed by the
government. “The governors are moving from holding salaries to sacking teachers
on the claim of incompetency when it is the same government that employed the
teachers,” Abisu said.
No comments:
Post a Comment