The Bauchi State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, has re-engaged the services of 2,495 primary school teachers who were cleared by the state government under the first batch of the teachers undergoing screening in the state.

This came as primary school teachers in the state had demanded the immediate payment of their seven months salary arrears.

Deputy Director, Public Relations at the Board, Kabiru Kobi said in a statement weekend in Bauchi that the number of the reinstated teachers were among the 2,873 teachers under first batch whose certificates were verified and subjected to the proficiency test by the state Teachers Service Commission, TTC.

According to Kobi, this has brought the total number of teachers in the state to 21,495. He further said that the verification committee set up by the state government was still screening more teachers.

In a related development, teachers in the state have started organizing prayer sessions for God to soften the hearts of those in the authorities so that their seven months salaries could be paid.

The leadership of the TTC which organized the prayers said that the screening exercise was taking too long and asked government to complete the exercise in order to allow them to continue with their work. Some of the teachers- Mallam Yusuf Adamu and Mallama Hajara said that they had resolved to take their case to God for His devine intervention.

According to them, “20 teachers so far have died because of this lingering problem as they did not have money to seek medical attention. This morning, we took the corpse of a teacher to the grave yard,” they said.

In its reaction, a senior staff with SUBEB who spoke with newsmen on condition of anonymity faulted claims by teachers that they were not being paid their salaries promptly.

He said: “SUBEB has over 25,000 teachers and the board only screened 5,000; out of which about 2500 were cleared. So, we only have over 2000 teachers left. They should be patient because the committee is still working on their matter. There is no cause for alarm.”