By Juliana Uche-Okobi
For allegedly deserting their duty posts for about two years, 42primary school teachers in Gamboru Ngala local government area of Borno State have been suspended. The suspension followed the directive of the state governor, Babagana Zulum, and made known during the June 12 Democracy Day celebration at the Ramat Square in Maiduguri, state capital.
The governor expressed surprise that during his tour of primary schools in Gamboru Ngala, he noted that in one of the schools visited and which has on its register a number of 62 teachers, only 11 of them were present. To make it worse, the head teacher actually admitted to the governor that that has been the situation in the school in the last two years. “To my dismay, the head master said he has had only 11 teachers in the school in the last two years,” the governor said.
But the teachers would not go unpunished. Obviously angered by their attitude of absenting themselves from school for such a long time, Governor Zulum gave directive that the erring teachers should be suspended. “This is very obnoxious and I have directed the suspension of the 42 teachers who were not on ground,” he said.
The governor who stressed that he would not condone the culture of absenteeism, indolence, indiscipline and nepotism in the public service, maintained that prudent management of public funds, transparency and accountability should be the guiding principles in all public activities. He further stressed that proactive modalities would be put in place toward creating institutional framework for basic service delivery, to address the high public expectations aimed at strengthening the confidence of the people of the system.
“We will address the issues of security, poverty, unemployment, quality education, infrastructure, health services among other things that will positively impact on our lives. All this will invariably depend on good governance in a democracy,” the governor stated.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT)Borno State chapter, has defended the suspended teachers. Jubril Muhammed, state Chairman of the NUT, said the teachers’ action was not deliberate. According to him, teachers in the state usually worked on a two- week shifts agreement because of the peculiar security challenge in the state.
“The first set of teachers were deployed to liberated councils while those that are substituting them every two weeks are working in the Internally Displaced camps of the LGAs in the city of Maiduguri,” he explained. “It is not possible for all teachers to be on ground at the same time because of the current challenges. We also lack adequate teachers to carter for the educational services in both the LGAs and IPDs campsat the same time,” Muhammed further said.
Another problem the NUT state chairman noted was that the teachers had lost their sources of income and so could not cope with the demands of going to school every day. “Also, most of our teachers have lost everything, including their means of livelihood,” he said, adding also that there was no accommodation for teachers in the local government.
While Governor Zulum was yet to react to the NUT defense as at the time of filing this report, the NUT Chairman had appealed to him to show mercy to the affected teachers.
