Edo teachers tackle Obaseki, insist strike not politically motivated

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By Bisi Olaniyi, Southsouth Bureau Chief

Members of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) Edo State Wing have insisted their suspended 19-day indefinite strike was not politically motivated.

The strike, according to them, was not to derail Godwin Obaseki’s educational programmes as alleged by the Governor.

The teachers, in their communiqué at the end of an enlarged State Wing Executive Council (SWEC) meeting of Edo NUT by the chairman, Pius Okhueleigbe, the Assistant Secretary-General, Moni Mike and three others, condemned Obaseki for describing the suspended strike as politically motivated.

Obaseki, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had carpeted the recently-suspended strike by Edo primary teachers as an attempt to politicise education.

Edo Governor said: “Let me make it clear that we do not have any problem or challenge with our teachers in Edo State. The 11,000 teachers that we have trained for the Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (EdoBEST) programme are amazing.

“We have worked together and grown together in the last few years. They have been very supportive but unfortunately, what you saw the last time was not the teachers. It was a part of the leadership of their union that has become political.

“The union wants to play politics with the lives of our children. We have no problem with our teachers in Edo State but we have a problem with a section of the leadership of the NUT that wants to continue to politicise education.

“They want to derail what we have started with EdoBEST, in the name of politics. I have said that as the Governor of Edo State, who was popularly elected by Edo people, I am ready to fight with anybody that wants to joke with the lives of the school children.

“We are not going to negotiate lawlessness. We are not going to be intimated. We are ready to fight, as long as you want to derail EdoBEST.”

Edo teachers, however, stated Obaseki’s administration was given two months’ notice to attend to their demands, failure of which made the NUT members to embark on the indefinite strike, described as the last resort.

The displeased teachers said: “At the end of the enlarged meeting, SWEC-in-Session re-affirmed that Edo State leadership of the union was never in anyway being used politically to derail the programmes of the Obaseki’s administration.”

Edo teachers also called on Obaseki’s administration not to use the suspended strike to victimise members of Edo NUT, who massively took part in the industrial action.

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