Imo retires 314 workers over age falsification

Imo State government has forcefully retired 314 workers for allegedly falsifying their ages.

Chairman, Imo State Universal Basic Education Board (IMSUBEB), Prof. Obioma Iheduru, disclosed this to newsmen in Owerri, yesterday.

Iheduru said that 117 of the affected persons were teachers drawn from eight Local Government Education Authorities (LGEAs) in the state, while the other 197 were security men.

According to him, some of them were due for retirement, but altered their ages and date of first employment, with the aim of extending their stay or remaining in service beyond the 35 years mark.

“There are some people that were retired from the LGEAs for one act of corruption or another. They were 117. These people are due for retirement, but they falsified their documents. So they were forced to retire from across eight councils of the state.

“And just recently, we also retired 197 security men across the state. These people are long due for retirement. Some of them are 70 years and above and are supposed to have retired about 10 years ago,” he said.

The IMSUBEB boss also disclosed that in the recent application for 4,000 teachers’ jobs in the state, over 51, 000 applications were received.

Computer Basic Test (CBT) will be used in the examination and subsequent interviews to get the employable number, he added.

Governor Emeka Ihedioha had recently approved the recruitment of the 4,000 teachers and administrative staff for the board, to tackle under-staffing in the state’s education sector.