Lagos — A job listing posted on the international recruitment platform Teach Away has ignited outrage across Nigeria after it advertised a Deputy Head of School position at the Abraham Lincoln American Academy in Lagos with language community members and legal experts describe as racially exclusionary — reigniting a long-standing debate about racial hierarchy within Nigeria's private international school sector.
The posting, shared widely on Nigerian social media and discussed on the Nigeria subreddit with a score of 83 and over 70 comments, prompted immediate public anger. The school's name — invoking the American president most associated with abolishing slavery — sharpened the sense of irony for many Nigerian observers and legal voices, who questioned how an institution bearing Abraham Lincoln's name could operate a discriminatory hiring process on African soil.
Nigerian Legal Experts: This May Violate Federal Law
Labour and human rights lawyers contacted for this article were unequivocal that racially discriminatory hiring criteria, if proven, would expose the institution and recruitment platform to serious legal exposure under Nigerian law. "Nigeria's Labour Act Cap L1 LFN 2004 and the 1999 Constitution as amended both prohibit discrimination in employment," said a Lagos-based employment law practitioner familiar with discrimination cases in the private sector. "A foreign-operated institution on Nigerian soil does not enjoy exemption from these provisions. If the language of the listing amounts to exclusion on racial grounds, that is a prima facie violation."
A Nigerian education policy analyst added that such hiring practices — whether explicit or implied — deny qualified Nigerian educators access to senior leadership in schools operating on Nigerian territory and charging Nigerian families premium tuition fees. "We have world-class Nigerian educators with international credentials. When a school on Lagos Island signals that leadership positions are reserved for a particular race, it sends a message to the entire Nigerian teaching profession that they are second-class in their own country," the analyst said.
The Listing and Its Status
The original listing was posted on Teach Away's platform, which facilitates international teaching placements globally. As of publication, the Teach Away page for the Deputy Head of School role at Abraham Lincoln American Academy was accessible online. Neither the Abraham Lincoln American Academy nor Teach Away had issued any public statement responding to the controversy — a silence that Nigerian legal advocates note is itself a telling response. "When an institution does not deny, does not explain, and does not remove a discriminatory posting in the face of a public firestorm, the silence becomes part of the record," said the Lagos employment lawyer.
The listing's persistence on the platform despite public controversy prompted additional criticism of Teach Away's content moderation practices. International recruitment platforms operating in African markets have faced growing scrutiny over whether they adequately screen job postings for racially or nationally discriminatory criteria before publication.
A Pattern in International Schools?
The Abraham Lincoln American Academy is one of several internationally branded private schools operating in Lagos, a city that hosts one of Africa's largest concentrations of multinational companies and expatriate communities. These schools often command premium fees and market themselves to both Nigerian elite families and expatriate households. Critics argue that leadership of such schools has historically skewed heavily toward expatriate staff — a preference that, even when not made explicit in job postings, has the practical effect of excluding Nigerian applicants from the highest-paid roles in their own education system.
The Nigerian Bar Association and the National Human Rights Commission have previously intervened in high-profile workplace discrimination cases in the private sector. Civil society groups focused on labour rights are expected to monitor developments closely. A formal complaint to the Industrial Arbitration Panel or the National Industrial Court — which has jurisdiction over employment discrimination — remains an available avenue for aggrieved parties.
In Nigeria, as across Africa's giants, challenges are real but entrepreneurial energy and cultural creativity drive progress — and so does the refusal to accept second-class status on one's own soil. The scale of public reaction to this listing suggests that Nigerians, particularly in cosmopolitan Lagos, are increasingly unwilling to tolerate discriminatory practices, however quietly institutionalised they may have become. This story is developing; Teach Away and the Abraham Lincoln American Academy have been approached for comment.
