Teachers’ Day 2016: Ogun pardons sacked, suspended workers

The Ogun State Government has announced the recall of 12 out of the 16 workers in the state public service recently dismissed as a result of alleged unethical conduct during this year’s Teachers’ Day celebration.
The recalled workers have also been directed to go back to work with effect from January 2, 2017.
Government has also pardoned and directed all the 19 workers suspended in connection with their role at the venue of the same event to resume at their duty posts with effect from December 1, 2016.
Thirty five workers were sanctioned on Monday, October 31, 2016 after a panel set up to investigate them individually on the allegations levelled against them by concerned members of the public, found them guilty of committing various infractions against the Public Service Rules.
Nineteen of them were suspended while 16 others were dismissed on the recommendations of the panel.
A statement by the state’s Head of Service, Elder Sola Adeyemi, said, “Consequent upon this, government has been receiving appeals on behalf of the affected workers from the national and state leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress, the Trade Union Congress, the Nigeria Union of Teachers, traditional rulers, elders, religious leaders, eminent personalities as well as the affected workers.
“Following these interventions, government decided to revisit the matter and consequently set up machinery to carry out a case by case evaluation of the affected workers for the purpose of reviewing the sanctions and after a careful consideration of the report at the conclusion of the review exercise, government, on compassionate grounds, decided to immediately pardon 31 of the concerned workers.
“Let me state at this juncture that cases of the other remaining four dismissed workers, including Messrs Dare Ilekoya, Eniola Atiku, Nola Balogun and Akeem Ambali, are still undergoing evaluation and I assure you that government will come out with the conclusion in their cases in due course.”
The state government also expressed appreciation to all stakeholders, traditional rulers, elders, religious leaders and eminent personalities for the interventions that resulted in the review of the cases of the sacked workers.