Teachers at the National Industrial Court in Kaduna on Thursday. (Photo: Garba Muhammad)
Justice
Lawal Mani of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria in Kaduna,
today, presided over the planned massive sack of over 20,000 teachers,
and the case was adjourned to February 6th, 2018.
The National Industrial Court of Nigeria, Kaduna division, on
Thursday, halted the planned sack of 21,780 primary school teachers who
failed a competency test organised by the state government, Premium Times reports.
The lawyer representing the teachers, Samuel Atum, had on October 30 filed a motion of “interlocutory injunction”,
asking the court to restrain the government from dismissing or
disengaging any teacher on the basis of the test conducted in June 2017.
Justice Lawal Mani granted the application pending the
determination of the substantive suit. The case was adjourned to
February 6th, 2018.
The hearing on Thursday was attended by hundreds of teachers and labour leaders.
The lawyer, Mr. Atum, praised the court for “graciously” giving the order.
“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,” he told journalists. “I have confidence that the government will comply or obey this order.”
Lawyers representing the State Attorney General and the State
Government, as well as Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, TRCN,
declined comments.
Some teachers said the ruling was encouraging. “It has given us hope. We hope too that the governor will obey the court order,” Zainab Sanusi, a teacher, said.
The planned mass sack of teachers sparked controversy after
evidence truly showed the teachers performed woefully in the competency
test.
Some of the scripts released by the government showed that many of
the teachers supplied ridiculous answers to basic questions while about
two-thirds of the teachers failed to score up to 75 per cent in the
grading.
The Kaduna government has since vowed to sack the affected workers,
despite threats by the local chapter of the Nigerian Union of Teachers,
NUT, to embark on indefinite strike.
The government also said it would recruit 25,000 qualified teachers in their stead.
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