Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has revealed that government officials sold appointment letters to about 2,277 poor applicants before recruiting them as teachers.
He vowed to hand over to security agencies suspended officials of the Nasarawa State Teachers’ Service Commission (NSTSC) who extorted money from applicants for employment.
Governor Sule revealed this after he was presented with the report by the committee set up to investigate irregularities in the recent recruitment of teachers by the Nasarawa State Teachers Service Commission, at the Government House.
Governor Sule who expressed worry over the enormity of the irregularities, said he is left with no option but to hand over the suspended officials to the security agencies, especially that money was collected from the applicants in exchange for appointment letter.
“These people, we would report them to the security agencies, because this is beyond administration.
“The aspect of them collecting money from people, I don’t even have the power to handle that.
“The security agencies should be involved to see how these innocent children would get back their money,” he said.
The governor said the suspended NSTSC officials have not been fair to the state because they went overboard to recruit 3,277 teachers instead of the 1,000 approved by his administration.
“How do we accommodate 3,277 teachers today in Nasarawa State? Where are you going to get the money to pay them? Where are you posting them?
“But that is not even the biggest worry. The biggest worry is that the entire exercise was not done on merit, which means we have engaged people who are not qualified to be posted as teachers,” he said.
Governor Sule said: “This exercise is a complete destruction. If we employ 3,000 teachers, there is no way any school in the rural areas would have only two or three teachers.
“We employ people because of the vacancies that exist. You can’t go employing teachers without knowing where to post them.”
He also expressed concerns about the qualifications of the 1,000 teachers officially recruited, adding that his administration may consider conducting a fresh selection process for the entire 3,277 recruited teachers in order to be able to employ 1,000 most qualified teachers.
