THE Niger State government has announced the immediate cancellation of the recent recruitment of 2,500 teachers carried out by the State Universal Basic Education Board.
The development followed complaints and public outcry that trailed the processes that led to the recruitments.
There are allegations that appointment letters were sold out to the highest bidders, while placements and postings were done without due process and in violation of laid down procedures.
A statement made available to newsmen on Sunday in Minna by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Mrs. Mary Noel Berje, said alleged irregularities and malpractices in the exercise necessitated the cancellation.
The statement said the appointment processes would be investigated to ensure that only those who are really qualified are the ones to be recruited.
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Mrs Berje said the state government would issue a statement on the new guidelines for the selection and revalidation processes soon.
There have been complaints, however, by some of the successful candidates who have already been issued letters of employment.
Some of the candidates who pleaded anonymity, in a brief interaction with Tribune Education over the weekend in Minna, said: “We are indeed surprised at the turn of events by a government that claims it places priority on the education of its people to have hidden under the disguise of irregularities to cancel our employments just because their preferred candidates sat for the same examinations with us and failed woefully; yet they want to arm-twist the government using political, religious and ethnic considerations.”
Investigation by Tribune Education revealed that the reason the exercise was canceled was that relations of some prominent politicians in the state who sat for the aptitude tests failed woefully, unlike the non-indigenes particularly southerners, who excelled in the examinations.
Prior to aptitude tests, the state government, in conjunction with the state’s Universal Basic Education Board, had stressed that merit would be applied strictly, and that only candidates who passed the examinations would be employed.
However, the outcome of the aptitude test irked the politicians, particularly some members of the state’s House of Assembly, former commissioners, former council chairmen, and top government functionaries, as their candidates whom they had already penciled in for employment failed the tests woefully.
An insider at the SUBEB office told Tribune Education that as soon as the results were announced, there were intense pressures on the immediate past executive chairman of the board to include the names of some of the failed candidates among those to be employed as teachers.
This, the source said, was, however, rebuffed by the erstwhile chairman and his board members.
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