The Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) would use their votes as protest against candidates with track record of disdain for teachers’ welfare and dignity in the November 21st governorship election, the Chairman of the union Suleiman Abdullahi has disclosed.

Abdullahi who stated this in Lokoja at a media briefing in lieu of the World Teachers’ Day celebration that will take place tomorrow said that successive government since creation of Kogi have not given priority to teachers’ welfare, hence its members will only vote for a governorship candidate that has priority for welfare of teachers.

He said this time the teachers had resolved to take their destiny in their own hands by sending a note of warning to any of the gladiators who wanted their votes, to make teachers welfare a priority.

“What we would do to ensure we extract commitment from those who are jostling for the governorship position is simple, the election of 21st November in Kogi State is not a general election, it is one election that will bring on board the chief executive of the State, but we have the final say for the issues of workers and teachers.

“We make bold to say here for what we already know there are five contestants. For all these contestants, we know their antecedents and we know who they are. They are not new to us in this State. We are going to appropriately arrange to extract commitment from them as far as teachers are concerned.”

However, he said that the union would not tell teachers the direction to vote but the antecedents of their handwork would tell teachers whether to vote for a particular candidate or not.

“I want to say here the teachers of basic education in Kogi State will only vote for education friendly candidates. We have not said vote for A or B. Your hand work would bail you out, your hand work would expose you.”

On the bail out funds being expected, he said, it was not bailing teachers out but government. ‘You are not bailing us out but bail yourselves out. Use it judiciously to bail the state out.’