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The Kwara State Government has said the ongoing physical screening of local government workers, SUBEB and Teaching Service Commission teachers is not to witch-hunt any worker.
“This screening exercise, which started on Monday, is purely to gather accurate data of workers on the payroll of the state government and help planning,” Fatimah Ahmed, Commissioner for Education and Human Capital Development, told reporters in Ilorin, the state capital, on the sideline of the screening exercise for Ilorin West Local Government.
“It is a combination of staff of the teaching service commission, local government and SUBEB. I want clarify that this exercise is not to witch-hunt anybody. It seeks to get the true total data of all our staff. We have a template we are working on and it is boldly written on the form. We want to get the name, BVN, the PSN. After this, we are going to look at the outcome of this exercise and decide what to do next.
“I want to advise the affected officers to make themselves available for this physical screening because we will not accept anybody giving us excuses. We want to believe that if you are not present for this exercise then you are not a civil servant, especially that enough time has been given.”
Ahmed described the exercise as smooth and successful so far, saying the reports from across the states have been impressive.
Ahmed also urged teachers in the state to continue to be upright and dedicated to duties.
Special Adviser to the Governor on Political Matters Saadu Salau announced that over 7,000 SUBEB and TESCOM teachers and local government workers have so far been screened by the team deployed to the Ilorin West Local Government holding at Government Girls Secondary School, Pakata Ilorin.
Salau, who is the Team Lead for Ilorin West Local Government team, explained that the mandate of each team was to ensure that the staffers of local government, teaching service commission and SUBEB present themselves physically before the team for screening.
“We are here from Monday to Friday. Our own is to make sure that every genuine staff of SUBEB, local governments and Teaching Service Commission has the opportunity to be captured in this data generation,” he said.
“I wish there will be nobody who will not make the best of this opportunity. It does not come often, it comes once in a while. About three or four days, we ensured that we are on the air, radio, social media. We informed all available media to inform the target that the exercise would be coming up and we included the venue. We are still here. We urge anybody who has not presented themselves to take advantage of Thursday and Friday to be present. We are here between 9a.m.and 6p.m.”
Salau insisted that the exercise was to gather necessary data that would help the state government in carrying out its activities in a transparent manner.
“You know in this part of the world, reliable data to guide policy makers is a major crisis. You have a situation where you are looking for data about workers maybe in a particular local government or in a particular ministry and you have a lot of challenges,” he said.
“And this is a government that is reputed for transparency and accountability. So this is a first major step on the part of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq and members of his team working in synergy with the State House of Assembly to get the accurate data of staff of local government, SUBEB and Teaching Service Commission.”
Salau commended the leadership of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) and the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) for cooperating with the team in Ilorin West Local Government.
Also, a member of the state house of assembly and member of the team, Wahab Opakunle, explained that the exercise would help the government in cleaning up the payroll.
Muhammad Isa of Government Day Secondary School, Odo-Ore, Ilorin, who spoke with newsmen, expressed satisfaction with the exercise, saying that the screening would help the government to get accurate data of its workforce in teaching profession.
