By Taiwo Adeyemi
The Elites Network for Sustainable Development, ENetSuD has called on the Kwara State Government to halt the proposed primary school teachers and non-teaching staff recruitment.
Recalled that the Kwara State Universal Basic Education Board has disclosed plans to recruit 1,600 teaching and non-teaching staff from across the 16 local.government areas of the state.
The KwSUBEB Chairman, Prof. Raheem Adaramaja, disclosed recently that the recruitment would be carried out based on the needs assessment recently conducted across the 16 LGAs.
ENetSuD’s Deputy Coordinator, Lanre Osho made the remarks while featuring as a guest on Diamond FM, Ilorin, Kwara State weekly News and Current Affairs program “Gbagede Ajoro” on Saturday, 31st August, 2024.
Osho maintained the Supreme Court judgment has granted Local Government autonomy to all the 774 local government areas across the country and it’s unconstitutional for the State to make any recruitment for the local government.
“The committee to implement the Apex Court judgment on Local Government autonomy has been inaugurated by the Presidency and any state that refused to conduct local government election won’t access monthly allocation”.
“Kwara State Government should wait till after the local government election and allow the new council heads to employ teachers based on their own assessment”.
He furthered that it’s an aberration by putting the junior secondary schools under the local governments.
“Local government councils are paying salary of teachers in junior secondary schools in the state, recruiting more teachers will put financial burden on the local governments”.
The human right Activist added that that some local governments in the state are not viable to pay salary without borrowing from other local governments.
“ENetSuD has done financial assessment of all the 16 local governments in the state, for instance, Ilorin West local government is not generating enough revenue like Baruten local government, the incoming administration in Ilorin West must be willingly to block loopholes”.
“We are not saying the recruitment is bad but the timing is not right, the way the administration of Governor Abudulraman Abdulrasaq is going about it shows that some is fishy”.
“All local government areas in the state have facilities to conduct credible teaching and non-teaching recruitment”.
“The elected local government chairmen once settled in office will employ applicants that are from their area and stop the reckless transferring of teachers from one local government to another”.
“After thorough assessment by each elected chairman, the number of applicants might be more than the projected 1,611 vacancies announced by the state government”.
On the allegations that the group is fronting for the opposition People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Osho maintained that the allegation is not new about the group.
“During the administration of the PDP, the party alleged that we were working for the then opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, this is not about any party, it’s about allowing the full autonomy of the local government has declared by the Apex Court”.