Labour blasts Buhari for endorsing El-Rufai’s plan to sack teachers

The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has faulted President Muhammadu Buhari for backing the Kaduna State Government over its plan to sack school teachers.
Speaking at a special retreat of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), Buhari admitted it was no longer a secret that the education sector needed a revamp.

“What El-Rufai is trying to do now is exactly what that man told me about 10 years ago. It is a very serious situation when teachers cannot pass the examination that they are supposed to teach the children.
“It is a very tragic situation we are in, and this our gathering is one of the most important ones in this administration,” Buhari had stated.
Briefing newsmen on behalf of the affected unions, Chairman of Joint Research and Allied Institutions Sector Unions, JORAISU, and General Secretary of NASU, Comrade Peters Adeyemi, said that the endorsement of the mass sack of more than 21,000 workers at once by government that pledged to create jobs was most unfortunate.
He said the NLC would write a protest letter to the presidency on the matter.

According to him, “We condemn the President’s endorsement of the mass sack. How can a President that promised to create jobs turn around to kill jobs? We have stated this we will not accept these sacks because it did not follow due process.”
“The state government claimed that the teachers were not qualified, who employed the teachers in the first place? We doubt the veracity of the examination because government can set the examination for the teachers to fail to justify the mass sack action.”
“This has been our plight on the issues in dispute with Government and currently all the workers in the Research and Allied Institutions are eager to resume the suspended strike action at expiration of the ultimatum on Tuesday, 14th November, 2017 since Government up till this time has not responded positively to our demand to pay the 12 months salary arrears on Consolidated Research and Allied Institutions Salary Structure (CONRAISS) and implement other issues as agreed upon in the interim report of the Presidential Committee.”