Governor Abdullahi Sule has given reasons why his administration will not employ the teachers illegally employed by the suspended chairman of the Nasarawa State Teachers Service Commission (TSC).
Governor Sule made this known when he hosted a coalition of denominations under the aegis of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) on a thank-you visit at the Government House on Tuesday.
Responding to the request by the Nasarawa State Chairman of CAN, Very Reverend Dr Sunday Emma for his administration to absorb all those illegally employed by the TSC, the Governor said that will not be possible because most of them lack the requisite qualifications to teach.
“You are asking me to absorp them. Reverend, look at it two ways. I am not saying that I want to cause some people problems. I was told some of these people who paid money are not even qualified to teach. I was told some of them have given as much as 700, 600 thousand naira. These are people who would be paid less than 100, 000.
“I was told 80 percent of them could not even write acceptance letter. If you are the Governor Sir, and you are being told all these. If we are helping them, we are not helping our educational system. That means we can completely forget about our desire to reform the educational system,” he stated.
He explained that on coming into office in 2019, he commissioned some educationists to carry out a baseline survey of schools across the state after which they reported on the deplorable condition of the educational sector of the state.
“They came back and said they needed buildings, we have done that, they needed curriculum we have done that, amongst others. They also said we needed teachers. They said let us start with 1000 teachers. So we gave the approval for the employment of 1000 teachers,” he said.
He added that he gave approval for the TSC to recruit only 1000 teachers but the went ahead to employ more than 1000 additional teachers.
“They brought to me among the 1000, 50 slots because they know there are a lot of people that would approach me to ask for slots. I said no, don’t give me any fifty. Go ahead and employ all of them based on merit. I don’t even one a single slot. The reason being because our educational system in the state is grossly decayed and we need to bring it up. If we don’t have qualified teachers, if we employ teachers based on this-one-knows-this-one, we may not have the kind of good teachers that we are looking for,” he said.
Governor Sule decried the fact that most of those employed by the TSC even refused to be posted out to the hinterlands but instead chose to remain in urban centres, to the detriment of the population in the rural areas.
“You can not bring people who can not teach, who will refused to go to the villages where we need teachers, choosing to remain in the cities. They have to remain in Lafia, Akwanga, Keffi, Karu. Some of them don’t even want to go to Toto to talk less of Gudi. These are the problems we are facing.
“I don’t want you to feel that you have pleaded with me, and I have refused to help. In reality, I don’t have any problem helping whomever, but I don’t want to bastadize our education system,” he said.
While awaiting the outcome of the committee set up to investigate the matter, he said the best option out of the predicament is for his administration to organize another interview session for all those employed, including the 1000 teachers already approved, in order to give everyone the opportunity and to be able to select the best amongst them.
“Let our selection of competent teachers come from there so that they can be given equal opportunity. This time around, we will not allow these types of people to engage them. We can not get it right if we fail to do the right thing. My dream is to get it right in Nasarawa State. That is the dream of my colleague. But we can’t get it right except if we are honest to ourselves,” he stated.
The Governor assured that nobody would be victimized even after the outcome of the investigation.
“I have brought in one of the most respected permanent secretaries we had, Silas Dachor. I also brought a friend of mine that I also know he is a man of God to the best of my knowledge, Dr. Yusuf Alfa Tsenya to be part of that team. And then we brought a well-respected educationist, Dr. Fati Jimeta. I asked the three of them, along with the secretary to go ahead and investigate the matter,” he added.
In his introductory remarks, state Chairman of CAN, Very Reverend Dr Sunday Emma, said they were at the Government House to thank the Governor and his team for piloting the affairs of the state in a most organized, transparent, inclusive, unbiased, effective and above all the genuine fear of God.
The CAN officials commended him for the various initiatives and pre-emptive measures he took in addressing security concerns in the state, which they said have no doubt brought about peace as well as peaceful coexistence in the land.
“Today, farmers could go to their lands, cultivate and harvest, as well as bring home their farm products with ease,” the CAN Chairman said.
While commending Governor Sule to taking the right step by suspending the chairman and members of the TSC after it was realized they illegally employed teachers, Very Reverend Dr Emma however appealed to the Governor to absorb all those employed in order to fill the vacancies existing in the educational sector.
“The recent sack of the chairman and members of the TSC has further demonstrated your resolve to build a functional and lasting system and structure in our state. This courageous step was necessary in order to sanitize our educational system.
“We however, wish to humbly plead that the already recruited teachers be absorbed into the TSC and be posted properly as our schools are in dire need of their service,” he said.
