By Wole Mosadomi

There has been a running battle between the Niger State government and the state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, (CAN) in the past years over the employment of Christian Religious Knowledge, CRK, teachers in all public schools in the state.

The battle had been on since 2003 as succeeding administrations from the tenure of Engr. Abdulkadir Kure and the immediate past governor, Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu appear to be playing politics with the sensi-tive matter of recruitment of CRK teachers.

Almost one year since the present administration of Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello the story had remained the same despite words of com-mitment given by him on the same issue during his campaigns last year.

Chairman, Niger State Christian Religious Knowledge, Rev. Joseph Tokolo, in an interview, said as at 2004 when there were about 152 schools, there were only 120 CRK teachers in the state.

“In 2004 when we hosted the National Conference of CRK Teach-ers, the statistics given to us by government was 220 CRK teachers including the non qualified teachers for over 450 schools.”

He said CAN saw this as a big challenge and promptly engaged volunteer teachers and paid N6,000 stipend to fill the gap. Wheras the Christians are being denied teach-ers, the story is different with the Islamic Religious Knowledge as they have qualified teachers to teach in most of the schools.

Rev. Tokolo made it very clear that the problem is not for lack of professional CRK teachers but a deliberate attempt by the state to discourage the teaching of Christian Religion in the state.

According to him; “I am appealing to the present state administration to revisit this issue and do justice in order to save the entire state of an impending calamity. I made it known some years back when the insurgence started when I suggested that one of the best ways to tackle the problem was to teach the youth the way of God, so that they are not influenced by worldly affairs.”

Also speaking, the state CAN chairman, Rev. Musa Dada express-ed sadness over the issue, saying that it is very clear that previous admini-strations in the state played politics with the Christian Religion.

“I felt so sad that top on my agenda when I was voted as the CAN chair-man was how to collaborate with the state government to solve the problem of lack of CRK teachers in the state but from all indications government failed me and the entire Christians in the state.

“When I had the opportunity to meet the governors on several occasions, I presented all our demands to them with convincing reasons on the need for immediate recruitment of CRK teachers and Gov. Muazu Baban-gida Aliyu particularly gave me his words on the issue and even directed me to personally look for qualified CRK teachers from anywhere which we did and 100 names were short-listed and submitted to the govern-ment but unfortunately, nothing came out of it.”

Rev. Dada said as at the last statistic-al data, the state needs about 300 CRK teachers for the over 300 schools in the state.  “We are not even insisting that the entire 300 should be recruited at once but government should be seen to be starting from somewhere. If government wants justice and fair play, it should be able to employ some 250 CRK teachers,” the CAN chairman said, adding, that when Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello was campaigning he express-ed shock and wondered why such a sensitive issue should be swept under the carpet. He promised to solve the problem as soon as he was sworn in.