Kaduna teachers dare El-Rufai, begin strike Strike won’t stop sack of teachers – Govt
Primary and secondary school teachers in Kaduna state yesterday began their planned indefinite strike action to express their grievances over the sack of about 22,000 teachers who the state government said failed a primary four exam conducted to test their competency.
The government said in a response to the strike yesterday that the strike would not make the government reinstate the teachers that it laid off which culminated in the strike.
The teachers began the strike in defiance of a threat by the state governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, to sack teachers who participate in the strike.
The state chapter of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) had on Sunday issued a notice to its members across the state directing them to start an indefinite strike beginning from yesterday but the state government in a swift reaction threatened to dismiss any teacher who participated in the strike. It also instructed its education administrators to open registers in all schools and declare any teacher absent from work as having absconded from duty under the public service rules.
Our reporter who visited some schools in the state metropolis yesterday observed that the strike action paralyzed academic activities in majority of the schools, particularly the primary schools.
Following the threat by the state government, many of the teachers went to school to sign the register opened by government but did not teach.
This was observed at the LEA Ungwar Dosa and at Aliyu Makama LEA school in Barnawa.
Some pupils seen yesterday morning around Trikania in Chikun LGA said they decided to go back home because their teachers did not attend to them. At LEA Primary School, Kawo, staff of the school stood outside while the classrooms were locked up. At LEA Ungwar Boro, only security guards were seen while the classrooms were under lock and key.
At LEA Primary School Maiduguri Road, while the teachers had resumed from the holiday, the pupils were yet to. A security guard in the school told our reporter that the teachers came to school in the morning but the pupils did not. Also at LEA, Unguwar Mu’azu, some of the teachers were at the school premises but the pupils were nowhere to be found.
However, in most of the schools, the pupils were asked to return home because of the strike. As at the time of filing this report, some secondary schools said they were yet to get the NUT circular on the strike.
The NUT state chairman, Audu T. Amba could not be reached for comment on the strike but the NUT Chairman, Zaria Local Government Area, Yahaya Abbas described the strike as inevitable since the state government had ignored efforts to meet the teachers’ demands.
He said the sack was not done in accordance with civil service rules, adding that majority of the teachers passed the examination with more than 60 percent and there was no justification for pegging the pass mark at 75.
In the notice of strike earlier issued by the NUT chairman, he recalled that the union had earlier given the state government a twoweek ultimatum to rescind its decision. “As a responsible organization, the union decided to ventilate its grievance before the national industrial court, Kaduna in suit no. NICN/ KD/53/2017. The court in December, 2017 granted an interlocutory injunction restraining the state government from disengaging any teacher pending the determination of the case,” he said, adding that the governor disregarded the court order served on him and went on to order the distribution of letters of disengagement to the affected teachers, dated November 3, 2017.
In its response to the strike action that began yesterday, the state government said the strike would not make it reinstate unqualified teachers.
A statement signed by Samuel Aruwan, media aide to the Kaduna governor, said the government was collating reports from its education administrators and reiterated that all teachers not in their schools for work would face the severest penalties applicable in the public service rules.