Sack of 22,000 Teachers in Kaduna State: Sanity inter-coursed with impunity

INTRODUCTION As Justice Chukwudifu Oputa once opined, that “ impunity destroys the confidence of the people in the authority and the role of the state. It makes healing and social integration, rehabilitation and reconciliation difficult if not impossible.” We shall with this at the back of our mind, discuss the shameful and deleterious sack of 22,000 workers in Kaduna State. When an angry Fela sang, “Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense”, it was because he realized that things were not really what they claimed to be. We totally agree with the music icon that things have started falling apart and that things are no longer what they claimed to be, as our educational system has since become a shadow of itself. They are more of establishments or museum artifacts meant for window dressing, rather than serving their true intent and purport of existence. In the educational system where important subject like history has curiously been deleted from school syllabus, we can only use the immortal words of Yeats, “Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.” LEGALITY OF THE COMPETENCY TEST CONDUCTED FOR TEACHERS IN KADUNA STATE The activities and conduct of teachers are being regulated in Nigeria by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN). It is an agency of the Federal Ministry of Education. It was established by the TRCN Decree N0. 31 of 1993 (now TRCN Act CAP T3 of 2004) with the major mandate of regulation and control of the teaching profession at all levels of the Nigerian Education System, both in the public and private sectors. Several decades of agitation by professional teachers and other stakeholders for the establishment of a regulatory agency led to the enactment of the Act. The Act in Section 1(1) charged the Council with the following responsibilities: •Determining who teachers for the purpose of this Act. •Determining what standards of knowledge and skills are to be attained by persons seeking to become registered as teachers under this Act and raising those standards from time to time as circumstances may permit. •Securing in accordance with the provisions of this Act the establishment and maintenance of a register of teachers and the publication from time to time of the list of those persons. •Regulating and controlling the teaching profession in all its aspects and ramifications. •Classifying from time to time members of the teaching profession according to their level of training and qualification. •Performing through the Council established under this Act the functions conferred on it by this Act. Consequent upon the above provisions and also based on the doctrine of covering the field, can the Kaduna State government be said to be the rightful arm/agency of government to have given this competency test to teachers in Kaduna State? If the answer is in the negative, then all that the Kaduna state government could have done would have been to liaise with the officials of Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, to conduct the competency test. We are a country operating on tenets of democracy and rule of law, as popularized by the British jurist A.V. Dicey in the 19thcentury. We do not operate by rule of might, or rule of the thumb or through intimidation, such as in the Hobesian society, where might was right, and life was short, nasty and brutish. The Kaduna teachers who were on the verge of being sacked might be incompetent as alleged test conducted but they were employed in accordance with the rule of law. T he Kaduna state government, not being the proper authority to organize the test ought to have brought in the officers of TRCN to help in the conduct of the competency test. Even if they are truly incompetent as allegedly revealed by the test, two wrongs do not make a right. I strongly condemn all forms of impunity, desecration and abuse of rule of law at all levels of government in this country. The Kaduna state fiasco is one of such condemnable acts. It is more odious that an APC government that promised creation of 3 million jobs per annum has been busy obliterating 5 million jobs per annum. The Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), has already condemned this satanic plan by the Kaduna State Government to sack a whopping 22,000 teachers for allegedly failing a competency test conducted in the state for teachers. We join them in unreservedly condemning this act of impunity. PMB’S 2018 BUDGET: WHERE COMETH OUR HEALTH? (Part 2) ENCORE Last week, we did an in-depth analysis of the proposed 2018 budget presented to the joint sitting of the National Assembly, where we considered the various key projects and programmes to be implemented in 2018, and the place of health sector budgetary allocation in the budget. This is against the backdrop in terms of the percentage given to health sector in 2017 budget, which now continues and is concluded. The above simple analysis is, but a mere tip of the iceberg. This is not good news for our cherished democracy. This does not speak well of Nigeria’s image as the giant leader in Africa and it does not go well for the health sector because what this means is that the government does not prioritize health. Health is wealth. So, even when the basic infrastructures are in place, it is only a healthy population that can exploit them. Nigeria is far from doldrums. In the midst of this sickening national malaise, our sensibilities are already being assailed by our political bandits and buccaneers who are already jostling for 2019 power game. What have they done with the 2015 – 2019 mandate? They have used it to spread poverty, abject penury, inflation, corruption, insecurity, hunger, pains, pangs, blood, looting, melancholy, hopelessness, haplessness, gnashing of teeth, thieving, etc. The End. NOW THIS ACCORD CONCONDIALE, THE CONTINUOUS SEARCH FOR NIGERIA’S ELUSIVE UNITY (24) ENCORE

We had earlier taken a break last week on the above subject matter to discuss the proposed 2018 budget that was presented to the joint sitting of the National Assembly. On this note, we shall continue and conclude our discourse on Hajia Gambo Sabawa. HAJIA GAMBO SAWABA’S IMPERISHABLE STRIDES Gambo was said to have been sent to jail a staggering 16 times in her lifetime – usually on trumped-up charges – and was often brutalised by the Police. In 1953, she organised an inaugural meeting of the women’s wing in Kano city. In July 1958, during NEPU’s second congress, the women’s wing decided to join up with the Nigerian Women’s Union, which was under the leadership of Ransome-Kuti. During the Second Republic, Gambo became a member of the Great Nigeria People’s Party and served as a Deputy Chairman. In the 70s, she was involved in small-scale trading and later worked as a contractor. Through the First Republic, she continued with her political activities sometimes suffering humiliating punishments from opposition thugs. She supported women’s right to vote and was eventually elected leader of the national women’s wing of NEPU. She was a supporter of the NEPU during the Nigerian First Republic. The NPC had the support of the Muslim elite, the emirs as well as the British colonial authority. AND THIS EXIT OF AN ICON– HAJIYA GAMBO SAWABA October 14, 2001, Hajiya Gambo Sawaba, the indomitable fighter for the liberation of women and the plight of destitute children, a symbol of dogged, determined, committed and fearless struggle against injustices of all kinds, passed away at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria. She died at the age of 71. Hajia Gambo, Nigerians will forever honour and celebrate you. Concluded. THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK “There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.”(Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws). LAST LINE Are fellow Nigerians still reading, digesting and always awaiting the next explosive discourse of Sunday Sermon on the Mount of the Nigerian Project by Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, OFR, FCIArb, LL.D? • Follow me on twitter @ MikeozekhomeSAN]]>