Kaduna state was shut down today as teachers walked off the job in a huge strike, demanding the government reverse its decision to sack 21,000 primary school teachers.
Thousands of civil servants led by President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Ayuba Waba marched to the state House of Assembly to register their protest. The NLC president said the competency test used as excuse to sack the teachers lacked credibility and was unacceptable.
The NLC president told workers in the state to unite and confront the situation and save themselves from “this agony.’’
“It was a smokescreen to just sack workers,’’ he said, adding that legitimate institutions mandated to organise such examinations were ignored by the government.
“Teaching is a profession in Nigeria, we have teacher training institutions and Teachers Registration Council, why are they not the ones conducting the test? “This is because they have sinister motives; that is why they didn’t use those institutions. “They are doing this just to sack and reduce workers and we will not accept that,’’ the NLC president said.
“Any exercise built on faulty ground cannot stand; this is our position,’’ he stressed. Waba alleged that the state government also plan to sack 15,000 core civil services and 5,000 local government workers.
“By putting all together and their families, up to one million people will be affected by the sack. We will not accept that.
“Therefore we will stand against this exercise until justice is done,’’ he said.
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