Ekiti State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described the statement by the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) on the workers’ strike in the as a confirmation of the insinuations that the APC has infiltrated the ranks of labour unions in the state and is fuelling the crisis.
In a statement by the State Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Jackson Adebayo, in Ado-Ekiti on Tuesday, the PDP said the position and language of the APC on the strike had exposed the opposition party and its complicity in the strike.
Adebayo stressed that the APC even threw caution to the wind by turning itself to the mouthpiece of the labour unions and demanding for what was not included in the workers’ demand list.
He noted that though APC had never hidden its mentality of retrogression in Ekiti State both in and outside the government, changing from an opposition political party in the state to the megaphone of the organized labour was the highest level of hypocrisy.
The PDP spokesman added that the financial handicap the state was experiencing today was as a result of the profligacy of the Kayode Fayemi-led APC government that ran the state aground from October 2010 to October 2014.
“Yet the party that is supposed to bow its head in shame has now suddenly become the advocate of the workers. It owed several months of salary and deductions before it was flushed out of government in 2014
“It is unfortunate that the same party that plunged the state into heavy debt which is now responsible for the present inability of the government to pay salary is now turning itself to the sympathiser of the workers who they ruined financially before leaving the office,” he said.
Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has advised Governor Ayodele Fayose to stop inciting the people against the striking labour leaders to prevent anarchy in the state.
APC insisted that workers’ resolve to embark on strike to demand for their five months salaries and other allowances, including payment of pensions arrears was constitutional, saying nothing would stop the determined workers from realizing their agitations.
The party in a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Hon Taiwo Olatunbosun, accused Fayose of summoning an “emergency meeting” on Monday with drivers’ unions to be coincided with PDP rally against workers’ strike protesting non-payment of their five months salaries.
Olatunbosun said what Fayose was doing by trickishly calling out drivers to join PDP protesters against civil servants is a desperate act to kill workers’ resolve to earn their legitimate wage for a decent living.
Condemning the governor for railroading drivers into a scheme to break NLC’s ranks and discredit state workers, Olatunbosun said: “Drivers have no business with workers’ strike because they don’t take salary from government. Drivers should see Gov Fayose’s attempt to manipulate them into a protest against the civil servants as working against their own interest.
“What Fayose is doing by wickedly manipulating the drivers against workers is that he feels comfortable with non-payment of salary that will lead to the collapse of Ekiti economy while he enjoys himself with his monthly N250m security vote,” he said.