Open letter to the IGP over plight of teachers in police schools

Sir,

WE ARE NOT HAPPY

It is with deep pain that I write this open letter to you sir and I believe that it would generate a positive and favourable response from you.

Your teachers in the various police secondary and children’s schools across Nigeria are being unusually short changed. This is so because we are simply seen as slaving for the Nigeria Police Force from time immemorial. As to who is responsible and why this act of ungodliness, we the teachers in these schools cannot explain.

As usual, the slogan is that ‘teachers’ rewards are in heaven’.  I make bold to ask, which of the heavens? That anyone is going to make heaven is only a deal between one and his God and that has nothing to do with employer-employee relationship.

Sir, the relationship that has existed between the Nigeria Police and its civilian teachers in the last thirty years or more is like that of a slave and his master. We have been cheated. Our appointment letters as teachers under the police simply state that ‘we shall be subjects in all respect to all conditions of service stipulated by the federal government policy governing federal civil servants and other Nigeria Police Force regulations and conditions as may be applicable to us.’

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In the light of the above, we the teachers are neither here nor there. We do not enjoy any police benefit; neither do we enjoy that of the federal government. But, when it is time to wield the big stick, our position is clearly defined so we could suffer decisively.

Sir, we see this as sheer wickedness; a situation where our promotion is not regular; our salary is not commensurate with those of our counterparts in other ministries; employees do not get regularized until after several years. The question is WHICH MINISTRY DO WE BELONG TO?

I asked the above question because the police have flagrantly refused to pay us the recent 40 percent peculiar allowance paid to workers under the Consolidated Public Service Salary Structure, CONPASS, which has been implemented and all arrears paid in other ministries. Are we not entitled to this life-saving allowance that many have referred to as ‘Buhari Alert?’

Sir, we are fed up with this unwholesome treatment and we have to cry out with the hope that something fast will be done so that we can avoid what some have referred to as down tooling, which would not speak well of the system.

Sir, the Ministry of Defence and all the para-militaries, except police, have since paid their civilian staff. What is the police waiting for? We shall not accept anything short of this payment, from which point other police teachers’ welfare shall take off.

We are not in any way equating ourselves with uniformed police men and women. They are paid based on the nature of their job. But whatever teachers deserve should equally be given to them so as to create a balance in the system.

Sir, we appeal to you to kindly look into this with a human face. We all have our families and for whom we toil day and night.  We have churned out responsible students from our various schools, many of who have equally found their way into the Police Academy. Today, they are officers, who definitely are not proud when they see us in our current conditions.

Kindly use your good office to ensure that the right thing is done now and forever.

We ask that we are moved fully into the Ministry of Police Affairs so as to avoid those who do not want us to live like human beings.

Sincerely yours,

Joseph Anjorin

Concerned Police teacher