By Francis Okoye, Maiduguri
Borno State Governor Babagana Umara Zulum yesterday undertook a supervisory and interactive visit to the Ramat Polytechnic in Maiduguri and approved the permanent recruitment of 20 children of the staff members, with priority to those whose parents died working in the school.
The governor also addressed multiple challenges after he sought to know from the academic and non-academic workers of the polytechnic, the challenges they were facing, all of which they listed.
Zulum was a student of the polytechnic from 1986 to 1988 for the National Diploma in Irrigation Engineering before he became rector of the same school from 2011 to 2015.
As governor, Zulum is now a visitor to the polytechnic.
At Wednesday’s visit, Zulum directed a committee he had constituted from amongst the staff members of the school to select 20 children of personnel particularly those of deceased parents, after determining their qualifications for automatic employment as lecturers, instructors and other categories.
He also indicated readiness to approve other ways to support families of staff.
Before those 20 jobs to staffers’ children, Governor Zulum listened to the challenges enumerated by the polytechnic’s rector, Dr Modu Z. Kyari and those of the school’s chairman, Academic Staff of Polytechnic (ASUP) AbdulRahman Shettima, former chairman of Non-Academic Staff of Polytechnic (NASUP), Musa Umar Chiroma as well as the chairman, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Polytechnics (SSANIP), Abba Aji Suleiman.
The governor, in response to the challenges raised differently by the three union representatives, directed the state’s commissioner of finance to remit about N12 million to the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, which was deducted from salaries for the purpose of union dues.
Zulum also directed the SSG to convey the approval for inclusion of two staff members said to have been excluded from a new policy of a 65-year retirement age, which was extended from 60 years.
