…Organised Labour threatens nationwide strike
The Kaduna State Government may be heading for another showdown with organised Labour following the decision of the Kaduna State Universal Basic Education Board to sack 2,357 teachers for failing a competency test.
The leadership of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) has threatened to embark on a nationwide strike if the State Government fails to reverse the decision to sack the teachers, including its National President, Audu Amba.
The union made its position known yesterday during its National Executive Council meeting at the Teachers House, Lugbe, in Abuja.
Recall that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on May 18, 2021, commenced a one-week warning strike cutting off services to protest the alleged anti–labour postures of the State Government.
The strike was suspended on the third day following the invitation of the NLC and the Kaduna State government for dialogue by the Federal Government led by Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen Chris Ngige.
However, on June 19, the Kaduna state universal basic education board announced the dismissal of 2,357 teachers who failed the recently-conducted competency test.
Its spokesperson, Hauwa Mohammed, in an issued statement on Sunday in Kaduna, had said the Board conducted a competency test for over 30,000 teachers in December 2021, adding that 2,192 primary school teachers including the NUT National President, Amba, had been dismissed for refusing to sit for the competency test.
Mohammed noted that 165 of the 27,662 teachers that sat for the competency test were also sacked for poor performances.
But addressing newsmen in Abuja yesterday, the Deputy President of NUT, Dr. Kelvin Nwankwo said Amba did not fail the test and remained its national president.
The union also said the action of Governor Nasir El-Rufa’i was clearly to intimidate the NUT President and embarrass teachers in Nigeria, while accusing the governor of using the tactics not to pay owed salaries.
The NEC urged the State Government to embark on a continuous Teacher Training Programme, which would improve knowledge and service delivery by teachers in the public schools of Kaduna state as obtained in other professions such as Nursing, Medicine and Law.
Nwankwo said Kaduna was the second most indebted State in Nigeria, adding that the State Government was on a free roller-coaster move to satisfy the conditionalities handed down to it by its creditors, which normally includes downsizing of the public service without even the remotest regard to our peculiar circumstances.
According to him, the intention of the Kaduna state government was to prey on the rather unfortunate existing non-employment status of “our teeming school leavers by recruiting them as teachers only to subsequently subject them to the raw deal it subjected the purported 20,000 teachers, thereby achieving its aim of casualisation of the teaching profession in Kaduna State”.
He reaffirmed the commitment of the NUT to stand with its “revered President, Comrade Audu Titus Amba and all the teachers in Kaduna State, who have fallen victim to the anti-labour policies in Kaduna State and which policies have defied all logic and are lacking in the milk of human kindness.
