From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State has called on the leadership of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) to sensitise their members on the need to maintain professional standard at all times and also resist attempts by politicians to turn them into tools of dirty politicking for the 2023 governorship poll.
The advice was contained in a statement issued on Sunday by the state publicity secretary of the party, Olawale Sadare, which was made available to journalists in Ibadan, the state capital.
According to Sadare, the APC’s lamentation came against the backdrop of a video clip, which went viral on the social media, wherein a female teacher and her male colleague were purportedly chanting a campaign song of a political party to pupils of a public primary school in the state.
In the same video, a female teacher, who adorned a fez cap, customized in support of a governorship candidate, was caught telling the minors to master a solidarity song in support of the gubernatorial candidate, and relay same song to their parents at home.
The APC, however, said it was optimistic that the leadership of NUT, NLC and TUC would take necessary steps with a view to making a scapegoat of the allegedly erring teachers by the appropriate authorities.
The statement read in part: “The whole world was taken aback few days ago when the video clip in which the shameful act was perpetrated leaked to the public space. Initially, we found it extremely hard to believe what was contained in the video clip because we did know that things had gone bad to that level and this explains why our reaction came only when we had done proper investigation and established the veracity of the matter.
“The video revealed how few compromised teachers and public servants were being used to do politics in sharp contrast to the dictate of the law, ethics of their profession and social responsibility ethos. We have been made to see the major reason for the pitiable condition of education in the state as those expected to teach morals and impart knowledge have been handed the duty of dirty politicking using the innocent minors as tools.”
