Kogi State Governor Idris Wada said yesterday that he sacked the chairman of the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) Usman Jibrin and other members of the board due to mismanagement and dishonesty.
Governor Wada, who spoke during an interaction with journalists to mark Democracy Day, said he had to sack the SUBEB management “because their cup was full”.
“We gave them an opportunity to perform but they failed. It is just an admission of lack of mismanagement and dishonesty.
Severally, I called them and asked questions about their performance and told them to change due to complaints but they refused.
One of the things I did was to give the SUBEB chairman time. I asked him to give me his own deadline to clear all outstanding salaries, given the facilities at SUBEB’s disposal and he said he would clear them before Easter. I then told him that I will hold him responsible if he failed and he said I should trust him. But after that, I was still getting complaints that he was owing January salaries and a responsible government cannot do that,” he said.
He said the idea of SUBEB was to have quality basic education at the primary level and that one of the critical elements for quality education is quality teachers.
“An unpaid teacher cannot be a quality teacher no matter how bright he or she is. You must pay teachers for the work they have done and the money for SUBEB is there. Money is being earmarked every month for the payment of teachers. It is not about lack of money, but mismanagement.
