Kogi says no plan to sack teachers not sympathetic to APC

Wemi Jones, Kogi State commissioner for education, science and technology, has said that a report making the rounds in some sections of some online media that Governor Yahaya Bello had ordered the sack of Kogi teachers who are not All Progressives Congress (APC), is an absolute falsehood.

Jones in a press statement issued to newsmen in Lokoja, Kogi State capital on Sunday, pointed out that “it is misinformation”, describing the news as fake, baseless and a figment of the imagination of unscrupulous individuals masquerading under the guise of opposition with the intention to create disaffection among teachers and workers in the State.”

He added that the state government was about to release the list of 1,500 successful applicants to be employed as teachers for the State Secondary Schools when the false news broke, saying the report was the one from the pit of hell.

The Commissioner equally explained that it would interest the authors of the sponsored of the report to note that “in the just concluded transparent exercise carried out to recruit teachers in the State, nobody was asked to show his or her party membership card, whether he is APC or PDP,, everybody that was interviewed, what mattered was whether the applicant possesses the requisite qualification to be a teacher in the State.”

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Jones described the misinformation as one too many by the opposition, said the report was not logical, but one laced with lies and vendetta. He lamented that people could go to the extreme to paint the State Government black for no just cause, adding that at no time was any directive issued to Local Government Chairmen as contained in the report to compile names of teachers not sympathetic to APC.

He however described the present Administration as one that has placed premium on the recruitment and improvement of the welfare of teachers and workers on the front burner, adding that the leadership of Nigeria Labour Congress in the State, including NULGE, had publicly commended the State Government for the release of promotion, payment of promotion arrears for teachers and other workers benefits in the state.