The forgotten TESCOM successful candidates beg Makinde again for appt letters
Yinka ADETUNJI
It is unbelievable that 20 of the five thousand successful candidates who sat for exams during the 2020 recruitment exercise by the Oyo State Post Primary School Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM) are yet to be given their appointment letters.
While others assumed work in February 2021, these 20 are still languishing hoping against hope they will receive favour too like their colleagues.
The affected candidates are therefore begging the state governor Engr Seyi Makinde to intervene on their behalf so that their appointment letters will be released by TESCOM.
Father of one of them who however begged for anonymity told Ogbomoso Insight that his “son put in all efforts to emerge successful in the recruitment exercise passing the exams, CBT and the oral interview.
“We were happy with great hopes that he would secure job after years of walking the streets. But our hope was cut short as without convincing explanation his letter was withheld along with others.
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“All efforts to secure the letter were abortive. They sent appeals to the PS TESCOM, to TESCOM chairman, to SSG even to the governor but all to no avail. Their claims were verified and found to be true but nothing has come out of it. My son is still without job.”
While congratulating Engr Makinde for winning a second term and wishing him success the distraught father still sent save-our-soul appeal for the letter to be released.
“We congratulate the governor for his victory at the polls for a second term tenure, we appeal to him to look into the matter again and get the candidates absorbed. They fulfilled the requirements for recruitment, it is gross default that some officers decided to play smart. We beg the governor to look into this. He is a father that listens, he should help us and write his name in gold in our hearts and eternally as our helper.”
One of the candidates also sent a message, “We sat for the CBT, we were shortlisted, sat for the interviews, and we scaled through. Our names were even in batch A of the list, lists of successful applicants were released in three batches and our names were in the first batch. We don’t know why our letters are missing,”
Meanwhile, efforts to speak with officers at TESCOM headquarters Ibadan, proved unsuccessful as those met declined to speak in the face of the absence of a chairman for the commission, the last one Pastor Akin Alamu having been relieved of his appointment.
Ogbomoso Insight recalls that about 100, 000 candidates sat for the exams to recruit secondary school teachers by TESCOM in 2020, and in the end the state government announced it had employed 5, 000 successful applicants.
However, these 20 were inexplicably denied letters of appointment even though they were successful while others had since assumed duty in early 2021.
It was gathered that when the matter got to the hearing of the governor he ordered a company – MIC – to verify the authenticity of their claims.
Panels of inquiries were also set up, one led by an aide to the governor simply identified as Pastor Ogedengbe and another by a former deputy governor of Ekiti state, Professor Kolapo Eleka, and the two panels as well as the audit by the MIC, it was said, were able to prove that the candidates were qualified to be given appointment letters. However, these verification exercises did not yield the desired result.
“The Oyo State House of Assembly was also informed about the plight of the candidates but they had no solution to it and so they continue to languish unjustly,’’ a source at TESCOM informed.
Investigations further revealed that some unnamed powerful figures in the establishment are responsible for the dilemma of the victims, as they were alleged of surreptitious replacement of names.
“The matter had generated a lot of furor leading to confrontations among top functionaries in the establishment.”
