Following the proposed sack of over 20,000 teachers in Kaduna after they failed a competency test, the teachers fought back, seeking legal counsel and for the time being, they have saved their jobs.
The Kaduna Division of the National Industrial Court issued an order yesterday, stopping the state government from going further with the plan to sack 21,780 primary school teachers that failed a competency test organised by the state government.
Social media had been awash with images showing the teachers’ perceived incompetence with many images showing scripts and ridiculous answers that some of the teachers gave. About two-thirds of the teachers that sat for the competency test, failed to score up to 75 percent. The state government afterwards announced it will be terminating the appointment of the incompetent teachers.
This caused unrest and therefore the state union of teachers through their counsel, Samuel Atum, filed a lawsuit against the state government over the planned mass sack.
The court granted this order, a decision which was praised, with Mr. Atum saying; “This is democracy and the premise of democracy is the rule of law, so we expect nothing more than absolute submission by the state government to comply with the order of the court. I have confidence that the government will comply or obey this order.” he said
Legal counsels to the state’s Attorney General and the State Government, as well as Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) declined comments when approached by journalists.