Intervention movement flays el-Rufai over sack of 36,000 workers in Kaduna
The Nigeria Intervention Movement (NIM) has berated the governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai for sacking 36,000 workers in the state.
In a statement signed by Head, Publicity Bureau of the group, Naseer Kura, the NIM expressed its support for the rallies and protests staged by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) over the matter last week.
The group explained that the leadership of labour has briefed it on the plan by the Kaduna State government sack about 21,000 of its teachers who allegedly failed a controversial competency test in 2017.
NIM berated the state government to pulling out of reconciliatory meeting anchored by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment and also ignored the order of the National Industrial Court halting the mass sack.
It added: “The Nigeria Intervention Movement, NIM, is appalled that the Kaduna State Government can contemplate sacking 36,000 of its workers in one fell swoop, given its ripple effect on the State economy and the teeming dependants of the sacked workers at a time the unemployment market is oversaturated with over four million workers losing their jobs in 2017 alone due to failing economy according to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics.”
The group stressed that it does not encourage the retention of incompetent teachers or workers for that matter, it discourages the mass sack of workers on trumped up excuses particularly when a state government, itself a creation of law, decides to ignore with impunity the intervention of a competent court of jurisdiction.
It further held that if the action of Kaduna state government is not checked, it could entrench arbitrariness and induce anarchy in the polity.
“This is particularly more worrisome in the case of Kaduna State where virtually all the textile factories, about the only viable industry in that State, have since become moribund because both the Federal and state governments have failed to initiate a conducive environment for local businesses to thrive,” it said.
The group added that in handling the alleged incompetence of teachers of Kaduna State, it recommends the governance solution model, which some other states have employed with appreciable degrees of success.
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