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Wajir residents protest over DP Gachagua's remarks on interdicted teachers

A screen grab of one of the residents in Wajir who faulted DP Rigathi Gachagua's remarks over interdicted teachers.

By Issa Hussein | Sunday, December 10, 2023

Gachagua said the TSC was wrong to punish teachers who ran away to save their lives.

Residents in Wajir county today protested against remarks made by Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua on teachers who were interdicted by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) after they refused to return to their work stations in the North Eastern region on insecurity grounds.

While addressing the Kenya National Union of Teachers' annual National delegates conference at Kasarani stadium on Wednesday afternoon, the Deputy President said the commission was wrong to punish teachers who ran away to save their lives.

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The residents who are a majority of the parents of the schools affected by the mass exodus said the DP's statement was unfortunate and was likely to worsen the existing crisis of teacher shortage in the region.

Halima Hassan said the TSC assessed the situation and found out that the mass transfer request was a scandal since every year when a vacancy was advertised the non-local teachers were requesting to be posted and after serving for a short duration they were seeking transfers causing a crisis in the region.

Halima said Kenyans of diverse communities were doing business as far as the Mandera border point while non-local construction workers were in remote villages peacefully doing their work due to the high presence of security personnel.

Mohamed Hassan, a parent who is a retired civil servant, termed the deputy president's statement as uncalled for saying such a statement fuels more Al Shabaab attacks in the region.

“Kenya is a sovereign state with enough security personnel safeguarding the lives of its citizens. You cannot admit forsaking a whole region because of ragtag militia," said Mohamed.

He said the statement was likely to incite more teachers in the region come January when schools reopen.

Most of those who spoke vowed to carry out a public demonstration over the failure of the deputy president to respect the decision made by the TSC and apologise for his remarks.

The commission's CEO Nancy Macharia who appeared before the senate in September on the interdiction of the teachers, said 223 out of 3,246 non-local teachers serving in the region were seeking transfers and upon assessing the situation the commission directed the teachers to report back to their working station before facing the disciplinary action.