Nasarawa Government Sacks 33 Lecturers of the State Polytechnic

Rabiu Omaku

• Staffs are placed on Half-Salary since September—-Rector
• We did not sack any staff—–Rector

Information available to Universalreporters247.com authoritatively indicates that thirty three (33) lecturers, including non-academic staff of the Nasarawa State Polytechnic, Lafia have been sacked by the state Government. The sacking comes at a time the polytechnic community was seriously in need of lecturers in the state owned tertiary institution.

It was learnt that majority of the sacked staff were confirmed as genuine staff of the institution while others were promoted after their appointment on June 2011, Among the disengaged staff was a disable person, The question that needed ardent answer was what happened to the promised made by Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura to accord automatic appointment to qualified physically challenged persons in the state?

The sacked staff are leaving in squalor and anguish over the non payment of September salary, The very month they were disengaged from service, one of the affected staff affirmed that the institution employed them in 2011 with a letter of temporary appointment, He further said after three (3) years they were given a permanent appointment letter; “This permanent appointment letter means we are pensionable staff under the service of Nasarawa state Government”.

“To sum it all majority of us were promoted but without implementation of the promotion, though is a general phenomena in the state, He added.

“Our predicament started as way back in 2014 when the state Government constituted a screening committee, The committee told us that we are not full-fledged staff of the institution not until October that the sack us, Amongst the 32 affected staff, The Governor’s nephew who came to the service the same day with us is still in the system collecting salary.

“Why is our own case a different matter from the Governor’s nephew? Majority of the affected staff are academic staff, this development seriously portends great peril to the sacked staff as some of them are grappling with grim situation.”

However, information gathered indicates the presence of over 100 engaged staff recruited to complement the inadequate academic staff in the institution, the rector affirmed that no staff was sacked by the polytechnic community, Rather Dr. Silas Gyar averred that the 32 staff are legal and pensionable staff of the institution, He further maintained that the affected staff were employed through lawful means.

“They came to the service through lawful means and as of this moment they remained our staff, He added that the school was in quandary over the new policy of the state Government lifting embargo on employment from 2011, The state Government asked the school to submit all names of employees under our service which we did, And this really affected the staff, Though not withstanding we can’t sack them because we need them, They management and the school council has written to the Governor over the matter and I’m hopeful that the sky would be the starting point”.

“In addition, they are placed on half salary and by the time everything works out well all their entitlements would be given to them.

The rector while responding on the approval by the state Government to recruit forty (40) supportive staff mostly academic staff to aid the shortage of lecturers said the engagement of forty (40) staff was the decision of the school council to address shortage of lecturers.

“The state Government did not employ anybody rather it was the school that has the right to employed and dismissed staff while the state Government is just the financier of the school”.

An insider also revealed that the school authority has since wind-off the engagement of one hundred (100) supportive staffs who are paid forty Thousand naira (N40, 000), the rector said the school is using large amount of money on the engaged staff than on hiring part-time lecturers.

“we expended N1.8m on part time lecturers but when we started paying N40,000 the engaged staff we realised that only N1.6m was spend ,this is a breakthrough in this direction, said the rector.

But investigation revealed that out of the one hundred (100), majority of them are not qualified as reliable source opined that people with certificate in either physical and Health Education, Arabic Studies, Social Studies and secondary school leavers were engaged to proffer solution as acute shortage of academic staff bites harder in Mass Communication Department, Urban and Regional Planning Department, to mention but a few. ”

Further revelations unveiled that only seven (7) lecturers were in the Chemistry unit of the institution and with the recent sacking ,This bring the number of Chemistry lecturers to six (6) The existing number seriously affects the academic activities of students, Other Departments having serious hiccups of lecturers are Computer Science.