NB247
Following a protest by teachers reportedly employed recently by the Ondo State Universal Basic Education Board over exclusion from the biometric capturing exercise for employment, the State Government has clarified that only those with genuine letters of appointment will be captured.
The government is conducting a biometric data capturing exercise as part of finalising the recruitment process.
I was gathered that while many are participating in the process, some of the teachers have been excluded despite being issued appointment letters.
The protesters are calling on the state governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, to immediately intervene.
The protesting teachers stormed the Governor’s office at Alagbaka-Akure to register their displeasure and demanded for their inclusion in the capturing exercise being carried out by officials of SUBEB.
However, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Ebenezer Adeniyan, clarified that the protesters were not teachers but those who obtained fraudulent letters of employment.
In a statement on Friday, Mr Adeniyan said the protesters were among those defrauded during the clamour to be part of the recruited teachers.
”To clarify, those who protested were not teachers but applicants defrauded by scammers who issued fake employment and posting letters during the recruitment exercise, after collecting money from them,” he said.
”These defrauded applicants were identified during the biometric verification process and informed that their letters were fake.
”Already, disciplinary action has been taken against three SUBEB insiders who allegedly connived with external individuals to defraud the applicants.
”The over 2000 teachers duly employed by the government for primary and secondary schools have already commenced work.
”However, Mr. Governor has directed the management of SUBEB to invite the victims of the fraud for a meeting, while a committee has been constituted to further look into the matter.”
Earlier, the Information Commission, Idowu Ajanaku, told our correspondent on Friday that all persons who were legitimately recruited would be captured.
He confirmed that there were reports of people who did not follow due process in their recruitment and that the government was making sure such persons did not make it into the system.
”Let me assure you that every person will be captured at the end of the day, but we are trying to ensure that those who are captured are genuine,” he said.
He said the statement was in process of hiring more teachers, but only the best and qualified would be allowed to fill the vacancies.
”We don’t want a situation where we hire teachers who do not know the subjects they are teaching,” he said.
”Particularly, we are targeting science teachers and you know this is the first time the state government is hiring teachers, past administrations did not do it.”