The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State, has criticized Governor Ayodele Fayose for crediting workers’ accounts with their salaries only to withdraw the money after “a heavy media hype”.
The state government penultimate week withdrew two months’ salaries already paid into the bank accounts of workers, mainly civil servants for November and December.
The APC in a statement on Sunday by the state Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, accused the governor of fraudulent conduct to sustain his grip on the “thoroughly abused” people of Ekiti.
The statement said: “This is not the first time the governor is doing this to workers. He did it to primary school teachers last year when he learnt that they were to embark on a strike. That is what he did last week after learning of the strike plan by teachers after they refused to help him in a solidarity rally to save him from Ekitigate probe.”
“The governor that stated the state was broke suddenly paid two months’ salaries after learning that the teachers were bent on embarking on a protest over his failure to pay their salary arrears, even though he quickly reversed a month salary from their accounts after workers were celebrating payment of two months arrears.”
Meanwhile, the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Fayose, Idowu Adelusi, in a statement discredited the allegations, saying that labour had not been kept in the dark in the running of the government.
He blamed the past administration in the state for being responsible for the woes of the workers over its inability to pay workers.
“Is it not the mess left behind by the Fayemi’s administration that is causing problem for Fayose’s government? Nine hundred and fifty million naira is deducted monthly by those who Fayemi administration took loan from. If N950m is added to N1.3bn that came last month, it will go a long way for Fayose administration to meet financial obligations,” Adelusi stated.
In a similar development, teachers in the state have declared a two-day warning strike over the refusal of Governor Ayodele Fayose to pay their September 2014 salary arrears and 2014 leave
The state chairman of the Nigerian Union of Teachers, Samuel Akosile, told our correspondent that the union would consider the next step to take at the expiration of the warning strike beginning today, Monday.