The Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, Saturday faulted the sincerity of the competency test conducted for primary school teachers in Kaduna state saying dead and retired teachers sat for the exam.
Comrade Ibrahim Khalid, the National President of the Union, while addressing a press conference yesterday in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital said the motive of the Governor was to downsize the workforce by all means.
Khalid, who also doubles as the National Treasurer of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC said the scripts released by the government revealed names of teachers who passes on two years ago.
The President said the names of deceased teachers and those who retired about a year ago appeared on both lists of those who passed and failed the exam.
He alleged that part of the conditions given to the government of Kaduna state before it can access the $350m World Bank loan currently under consideration by the National Assembly is to downsize the workforce of the state.
He maintained that the the governor has conducted three previous competency tests for the teachers where they all passed but insisted on the fourth one because of his desperation to downsize the workforce.
Khalid who describes the involvement of President Muhammadu Buhari in the controversy as unfortunate added that El-Rufai will also fail the same exam if allowed to sit for it.
He said, “The intention of El-Rufai sincerely is not about competency of staff or primary school teachers, no where in the world is 75% set as pass mark for examination, I don’t know how he arrived at 75% as benchmark to pass exams.
“There is a lot of issues, our members in the state discovered that some teachers that appeared for the exam were dead almost two years ago but they appeared as part of those who sat for the exams.
“There was another discovery, some of the teachers retired a year ago and they came and pass the exams. There are lots of confusions, some of those who passed exams are security men while some are cleaners, they are not teachers.
“El-Rufai is only out to downsize because we heard that he was pushing to get loan from the world bank and one of the conditions given to him was that he must downsize the workforce of the state.”
He explained that the union will continue to engage the government at ensuring that the planned mass sack of teachers and local government employee is suspended.
