15 teachers robbed at Birnin Gwari

Fifteen freshly recruited teachers were on Tuesday robbed on their way to Dogon Dawa village in Birnin Gwari local government area where they have been posted by the state government.

The government which last year sacked thousands of teachers for incompetence had subsequently recruited new ones who are being posted to various schools in the state.

The teachers numbering about 24 had left Kaduna in the morning and had stopped over at Birnin Gwari at the State Universal basic education office to report.

One of the teachers who narrated what happened, said after reporting at the SUBEB office, those posted to the villages made to proceed to Dogon Dawa village in three Volkswagen Golf cars, with some of them sitting in the boot.

One of the teachers, Moses Joseph, told Daily Trust that they had not driven for up to ten minutes when they ran into some hoodlums at a road block who forced them out of their vehicles and dispossessed them of cash and all valuable items.

“They collected all our handsets and our books. They asked us who we were and we told them we are teachers posted to Dogon Dawa and one of them said, ‘Ah! yaran l’Rufai ne.’”

He said initially the bandits separated the women from the men and were about to go with the women but one of them said they should leave them and go.

“So it was God that helped us otherwise some of us would have been abducted as well,” he said.

The teachers have since returned to Birnin Gwari and have made statements at the police station.

But many of them said it would be difficult for them to report at their place of posting due to the high crime there and are demanding to be posted to safer areas.

“They sacked over 1000 teachers in Kaduna South local government area, but they recruited only about 400. So why can’t they send us there to fill the remaining vacancies instead of sending us to these dangerous places?” one the teachers asked.