Cross River Governor Sacks Permanent Secretary Over Misinformation

Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River state has opened up on his purported ban on morning and afternoon prayer sessions in schools.

And in a rather ruthless fashion, the governor has ordered the immediate sack of the permanent secretary in the ministry of education, Anne Odey, for “flouting civil service rules.”

Daily Post reports that this piece of information was made known by Jude Ngaji, the state security adviser to the governor, during a chat with journalists in Calabar on Friday.

Governor of cross river, Ben Ayade

Odey had directed all private and public primary and secondary schools in the state to stop morning and afternoon devotion forthwith over security challenges in the nation, as directed by the state commissioner of police, Henry Fadairo.

A statement which the chairman of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in the state, Archbishop Joseph Ukpo, asked the state government to immediately withdraw, arguing that such directive negated freedom of worship.

He said: “This directive to suspend morning devotion will negatively affect the moral upbringing of our children who are the future leaders of this country.”

In his own statement, Ngaji disagreed with the directive, noting that the governor was neither in the know of the information, nor did it go through his (Ayade’s) office.

“The governor has directed that the permanent secretary be suspended indefinitely while the ban on suspension of devotion has been lifted immediately.

“It is true that police got intelligence information that Boko Haram is planning to bomb schools during morning devotion and therefore directed authorities in the ministry of education to act fast.

“But the permanent secretary did not bother to refer to the governor or call for stakeholders’ meeting to that effect.

“So, the governor feels pained that the permanent secretary got such sensitive information without seeking for his advice and went ahead to issue directive suspending morning devotions in schools,” he was quoted to have said.