EDITORIAL: Sit-at-Home And The Unjust Suspension of Anambra Teachers Over Pupils’ Absence

By Tony Okafor

The Anambra State Government’s suspension of school heads over pupils’ absence on Mondays is unjust, illogical, and deeply counterproductive.

It punishes the wrong people for a problem they neither caused nor control.

By the government’s own inspection reports, the affected teachers and school heads were present in their schools, ready to work.

Classrooms were empty not because of negligence, but because parents—still gripped by fear associated with sit-at-home tensions—kept their children at home.
To discipline teachers for this is to confuse responsibility with power.

Teachers are educators; they are not law enforcement agents. They cannot compel parents to release their children, enforce security, or erase fear by executive fiat.

Worse still, the action smacks of bureaucratic sycophancy. Supervising officials appear eager to stage a “show of firmness” to impress the system—perhaps to curry favour with the governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo—rather than to uphold justice or sound policy.

Governance should never degenerate into a theatre where innocent workers are sacrificed for optics or potential rewards.

This approach will only demoralise an already strained education workforce. When teachers who report for duty are suspended despite compliance, commitment is punished and morale collapses. That is not enforcement; it is injustice.

If the government genuinely seeks to restore normal academic activities on Mondays, the solution is clear: rebuild public confidence, guarantee safety, and engage communities.

Sanctions should target willful defiance by staff—not the understandable absence of pupils driven by fear.

Justice demands fairness. Policy demands logic. Leadership demands empathy.

The governor should promptly recall the suspended teachers and offer a public apology. Anything less will only deepen the sense of miscarriage of justice and undermine the very authority the state seeks to uphold.