Police school teachers protest unfair dismissal and demand pay
According to PUNCH report, teachers who number 31, reportedly accused Umar of unfairly dismissing them despite the fact that they had benefited from Buhari's acceptance of a five-year retirement age extension/length of service.
According to reports, a presidential directive raised the retirement age for teachers in the nation from 60 to 65 and changed the number of years of service from 35 to 40.
The instructors who were upset said that the policy, which was scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2021, applied to them.
The teachers bemoaned the fact that Umar announced a new implementation date of April 7, 2022, excluding them from the policy's list of beneficiaries in a joint statement made available to PUNCH Newpaper.
The statement read, “The FEO (Umar) sent another signal CD 1000/DFA/EDUC/FHQ/ABJ/Vol 3/248 in which she directed that the implementation date for the elongation of service for the teaching profession in Nigeria will now be 07/04/2022 when the President signed the Act into law and not 01/01/2021 when he made the pronouncement. By doing so, she automatically removed the names of 31 teachers in police schools who ‘retired’ in 2021.
“To us, this action negates the letter and spirit of the implementation which recognises 01/01/2021. Moreover, the FEO is not the Minister of Education and coordinating minister of elongation of service, who has government mandate to speak and issue directives on the matter.”
The instructors claimed that Umar broke her own regulation by covertly including certain teachers who had retired as of January 1, 2022 as being entitled to receive benefits from the implementation, which she claimed was supposed to begin on April 7, 2022.
“This obvious policy inconsistency attests to the fact that CP Rabi Umar is bent on denying the 2021 ‘retirees’ by all means. She has now put us in a dilemma because we did not process our retirement benefits last year, yet she’s trying to scheme us out of the new pension law,” they said.
The affected teachers urged the President, Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Ministers of Education and Police Affairs, and the Inspector-General of Police, to call Umar to order for her to “make use of the January 1, 2021 implementation date and ensure that our salaries are restored on the IPPIS platform and our arrears paid from January 2021, without further delay.”
The FEO, in a response to a text message inquiring about the allegation, said, “Good evening, pls contact Force PRO.”
The Force Public Relations Office, CSP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, did not take his calls which rang out.
The spokesperson for the Ministry of Police Affairs, Bolaji Kazeem, said, “On the welfare of any public office holder, there are procedures to follow. If they know that their right has been infringed upon, they know the procedure to follow. They are supposed to write a petition or appeal to the appropriate authority.”
Reference
Punchng, 'Police school teachers protest wrongful retirement, demand salaries' (online, 2022) https://punchng.com/police-school-teachers-protest-wrongful-retirement-demand-salaries//
