#BlogFeaturePost: Can Gov. Fayose Ever Change?

Hello everyone, here is Olajide Beke again, a Political Analyst based in Lagos with another feature article. His articles and views are his own opinion and they are always very interesting and enlightening. Here's a link to some of his previous post on my blog.

Enjoy. :)

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The people in Ekiti State has asked Governor Ayodele Fayose to stop deceiving workers over payment of their salaries and entitlements, saying persecuting union leaders for demanding for workers’ rights is a needless provocation that can rupture peace in the state. They warned that sending security agents after union leaders was a fascist approach capable of forcing citizens to an act of rage for a slide to anarchy. The Secretary of the APC in Ekiti State, Taiwo Olatunbosun, said in a statement at the weekend that union leaders had a responsibility to the work force and they had acted constitutionally in defence of workers. 

Warning Fayose against his fascist conduct, Olatunbosun said his inconsistent figures on the state’s debts and non-transparent manner in the conduct of government’s business were enough for workers to lose faith in the governor. He described Fayose as a serial liar, slamming the governor for crediting workers’ accounts with their salaries only to withdraw the money after a heavy media hype. Citing last week’s payment of two months salaries into workers’ accounts and later withdrawing the payments, the APC accused the governor of fraudulent conduct to sustain his grip on the “thoroughly abused” people of Ekiti State. 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 strike. “That is what he did last week after learning of strike plan by teachers after they refused to help him in a solidarity rally to save him from Ekitigate probe.” - claims the APC, accusing Fayose of playing games with the lives of the workers. 

The governor, who had said that said the state was broke, suddenly paid two months salary after learning that the teachers were bent on embarking on protest over 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.

“We reliably gathered that the money he used to pay workers last week was part of the cash he could not allegedly ferry to Dubai when President  Buhari came visiting. This is besides the fact that the

teachers salary for September 2014 was captured in the bail-out cash, yet he refused to pay the hapless workers who are barely surviving the harsh economic condition imposed on them by his anti-peoples’ policies while his own family lives in opulence in other states and abroad. As we speak, Fayose is threatening labour leaders for legitimately asking for the rights of workers. While doing this, he has relocated government business to Afao-Ekiti at an exorbitant cost just as he did when he was about to be impeached in 2006 while his wife is in Dubai in the last three weeks on the bill of Ekiti State even as his children live in opulence abroad riding about in exotic cars while Ekiti workers can’t afford to pay their children school fees. We understand that the money used to pay workers’ salary was the money for the aborted Dubai trip when it became apparent that it would be difficult to ferry the money to Dubai after Buhari signed an agreement with the Middle East country on financial crimes".

In its reaction, the Ekiti State Government said: “We cannot be reacting to every foolish talk of APC because most of its allegations does not go to common sense. Reacting is to make authors of those releases feel important. Ekiti workers understand us and we understand them. The workers know that Fayose has never deceived them, the workers have seen the difference between the inept and purposeless Fayemi-administration and this Fayose-administration. We will not persecute the workers as Fayemi did which of course was responsible for the outright rejection of Fayemi and APC at that last givernorship election. Fayose is a workers governor and the labour knows this. No controversy.

Since the inception of this administration, the labour has not been kept in the dark in the running of the government. The labour is a member of the appropriation committee that sits every month to share allocations from Abuja. The labour sees everything. This is a privilege labour did not have under Fayemi. Is it not the mess left behind by the Fayemi administration that is causing problem to Fayose government. N950 million is deducted monthly by those who Fayemi administration took loan from. If N950m is added to N1.3b that came last month, it will go along way for Fayose administration to meet financial obligations. It is only in Nigeria that treasury looters and bad administrators are celebrated or elevated to higher positions if they have the power of propaganda. In developed countries, people  like Kayode Fayemi will bury his head in shame as he is made to account on how he committed Ekiti to such a huge debt without anything to show for it.”

Hmmmmm.