Amosun didn’t sack workers, service commission did’

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The Ogun State Government has said the state Civil Service Commission is responsible for the sacking of the six civil servants over an alleged offensive comprehension summary passage and not Governor Ibikunle Amosun.

This was contained in a statement signed by the Secretary to the State Government, Taiwo Adeoluwa, in Abeokuta on Tuesday.

This was coming on the heels of an alleged petition by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project to the United Nations Rapporteurs on the sacking of five officials of the state Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and an English Language teacher.

SERAP had on Monday urged the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education to ask the Ogun State Government to rescind its decision as regards the sacking of the civil servants.

The government had accused SERAP of jumping the gun and crying more than the bereaved.

It wondered if SERAP had studied the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) in relation to disciplinary control over civil servants.

The statement read in part, “Had SERAP looked before leaping, it would have realised that by virtue of Paragraph 2, Part II, Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution, the Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, could not have played any role in the disciplinary measures against the workers.

“Had SERAP examined and understood the facts that led to the decisions of the Ogun State Civil Service Commission, it would have appreciated they were not even remotely connected with the constitutionally-guaranteed rights to freedom of thought, conscience and expression or academic freedom, which formed the kernel of its petition to the UN Special Rapporteurs.”

Quoting other aspects of the constitution, it further argued that, “The Commission shall have power without prejudice to the powers vested in the governor and the state Judicial Service Commission to appoint persons to offices in the state civil service; and dismiss and exercise disciplinary control over persons holding such offices.”