Ekiti APC cautions gov against blaming Fayemi for non-payment of workers’ salaries
Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, has dared the Federal Government to carry out the alleged plot of preventing him from travelling out of the country.
Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, has dared the Federal Government to carry out the alleged plot of preventing him from travelling out of the country.
He said: “Under the federal system of government, state governors are
not appendages of the President and as a leading opposition figure in
Nigeria, he cannot be cowed by President Muhammadu Buhari and his
agents.”
The governor, who was reacting to reports that two governors, one
from the South-West and another from the South-South have been placed on
travel restriction on President Buhari’s order, yesterday in a press
conference addressed by his Special Assistant on Public Communications
and New Media, Mr. Lere Olayinka, said whenever he wished to travel out
of Nigeria, he will do so in the full glare of the public.
He said: “I am not surprised or disappointed by this latest plot of
the Buhari’s government because the President Buhari that we know is a
man without any atom of respect for the rights of Nigerians as enshrined
in the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and this he
demonstrated as a military dictator and now demonstrating as a
democratically-elected President.”
The governor said he was however amazed that “this dangerous
dimension of compelling a sitting governor that enjoys constitutional
immunity like the President to obtain clearance from the
Director-General of the Department of State Service (DSS) before
travelling out of Nigeria can ever be contemplated.”
In another development, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti
State has warned Governor Fayose to stop maligning former Governor
Kayode Fayemi over his inability to pay workers’ salaries.
It said blaming the former governor for purportedly plunging the
state to debts is a wicked manipulation of the ignorance of the people
to justify “an unconscionable and mindless treatment of Ekiti workers
while Fayose enjoys lavish life.”
Fayose had during his last weekend’s media chat blamed Fayemi for
taking loans that would last till 2036 for full repayment. He said
deductions from Federal Allocation for debt payments had left the state
with a peanut not enough to pay salaries.
But reacting in a statement in Ado-Ekiti, the party’s Publicity
Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, accused the governor of insincerity and
employing ignorance of the people to deceive Ekiti workers over the
financial status of the state.
He said the governor had at different times given several figures as
loans taken by Fayemi to deceive the people in order to hide his plans
for the misapplication and misappropriation of Ekiti money, noting that
such was his conduct in 2003 before he was impeached in 2006 over
alleged sundry financial crimes.
Describing as provocative Fayose’s habit of asking workers to bear
with him in empty stomach while regularly taking his monthly N250
million security vote without funding the security agencies, Olatunbosun
challenged the governor to publish the state audited accounts stating
the state’s internally-generated revenue profile like Fayemi did
periodically and stop blackmailing the former governor over
“fraud-motivated instincts to exploit the ignorance of the people to a
fraudulent advantage.”
The governor’s aide who was flanked by the Chief Press Secretary to
the Governor, Mr. Idowu Adelusi, at the press conference further said:
“I therefore wish to state on behalf of Governor Ayodele Fayose that as
an opposition figure, he cannot be cowed by this pettiness from the
Presidency. Governor Fayose, by this press conference, is daring
President Buhari and his anti-democratic agents to carry out this evil
and shameful plot and let us all see how far it will take them.
“Anytime Governor Fayose wishes to travel out of Nigeria, he will do so in the full glare of the public and we await how he will be prevented from exercising his rights.”
Source: Guardian News