FCT minister wades into teachers, Kuje chairman dispute

By Cyril Mbah, Abuja

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mohammed Musa Bello has waded into the dispute between the Kuje Area Council chairman, Abdullahi Suleiman Sabo and the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), which declared an indefinite strike over the sack of 1,030 primary school teachers in Kuje early this month.

The minister directed the parties to sit and promptly resolve the contending issues to enable closed public schools to reopen for children to resume classes without further delay.

The FCT chairman of the NUT, Comrade Stephen Knabayi disclosed this to newsmen in an interview after one of the meetings organised to resolve the dispute, stating that the issues concern the future of education in Kuje, and not only the sack of teachers during an election year by the same administration which employed and confirmed their appointments last year.

Declaring the action as a huge political miscalculation, Knabayi urged the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), parents and other stakeholders in education to call the Kuje chairman to order, and compel the council to accord teachers greater respect and treat them better than the incumbent administration has.

The NUT chairman advised Sabo to recall the affected teachers and cautioned that disengaging teachers at the present time bore political disadvantages, and will greatly reduce the capacity of under-staffed public schools in the area council to deliver quality education.

Knabayi asserted that the NUT will resist and defend the rights of its members everywhere, and alleged that the Kuje administration is known to maltreat teachers for no just cause.

He alleged that the laid down procedure for sacking civil servants was not followed in the disengagement of the 1,030 teachers; as a teacher can only be sacked when found culpable of an offence after due investigation.

“We are presently on strike because of the sacking of about 1,000 teachers in Kuje area council of the FCT who were duly recruited in 2018 far before Sabo became the Chairman of Kuje Area Council,” he said.

“We are not saying that if anything is wrong you should not correct it, but, you should not stay in your office alone and generate issues that are not known to the leaders of the teachers,” the chairman continued. 

“We are always ready to meet with the chairman on several occasions to resolve issues. We have to understand the issue together and work together, but in this case, the chairman is not always available in any of our meetings,” Knabayi further stated.

The FCT NUT chairman declared that leadership is all about solving problems, as “leadership and governance are processes that are continuous.”

He cautioned that politicians in office are meant to correct the wrongs they meet and not create new ones, “because one cannot be solving problems and at the same time creating new problems.”

Knabayi decried the fact that under the present administration, there has never been training and re-training of teachers in the Kuje Area Council. 

He questioned why the Kuje chairman would go ahead to confirm the affected teachers in 2022 when he knew there are abnormalities in the employment, only to sack them in January 2023.

“It is surprising that after screening and confirming the teachers, who have been on the payroll for years before now and they have been working assiduously, you woke up one day to say they should be dismissed. We don’t do that in the civil service; probably because you (sic) are a politician but we are civil servants. We don’t do that because we know very its implications,”  Knabayi remarked.

The FCT NUT chairman referred to the layoffs as a failure to see the importance of teachers, and of education, which is the bedrock for development. 

“We believe that what was done in Kuje was a wrong decision and our demand is that the 1,000 teachers disengaged by the Suleiman Sabo administration must be returned to office. If there is anything that is noticed to be wrong, let us discuss it,” the NUT chairman declared.

On the elongation of teachers’ years of service as approved by the National Assembly and signed into law by the President, the NUT chairman pointed out that only Kuje, out of six area councils, has not implemented the decision, stating that it was surprising especially as the matter has already been gazetted and is being implemented everywhere.

He called on the Kuje Area Council chairman to personally attend meetings to resolve the lingering issues and not delegate them to lower personnel, “because when the chairman is sending his private secretary to represent him in our meetings, we feel insulted; since the private secretary is not a signatory to any documents in the council.”

Knabiyi questioned the fact that given the documents contained a provision that the directors of administration are to sign and he is still in the office, the council treasurer is still in the office, why a private secretary would represent him [Sabo], in vital discussions with the union.

He narrated how about 1,030 primary school teachers in Kuje Area Council of the FCT received the greatest shock of their lives after the incumbent council administration sacked them with immediate effect while alleging irregularities in their employment, just after they were confirmed as permanent teaching staff.

The NUT vowed to not accept the layoff action and has declared an indefinite industrial action against the Kuje Area Council, demanding the immediate recall of the sacked workers before the industrial dispute will be resolved.