The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has accused Governor Ayodele Fayose of awarding N720m to himself as the arrears of salaries and allowances of his unfinished first term.
The governor was impeached on October 16, 2006 by the then Ekiti State House of Assembly.
But the Supreme Court in a recent judgment said the impeachment was null and void because due process was not followed.
The state APC Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatubosun, in a statement on Thursday, said it was “selfish and callous” for the governor to pay himself arrears for his unfinished term when he had yet to pay workers and pensioners in the state.
The party said it was equally “shameful and heartless” for the governor to refuse to pay statutory pensions to Ekiti retirees after serving the state meritoriously.
It added that the government had also cancelled the N5,000 social security scheme paid to 20,000 elderly Ekiti people, introduced by former Governor Kayode Fayemi’s administration.
The party also accused the governor of refusing to pay traditional rulers for five months while also refusing to pay gratuity to retired workers since he assumed office.
The APC said, “Though he admitted he owes only May salary as if he has any excuse to owe Ekiti workers for one day, as we write, over 10,000 Ekiti workers have yet to receive their April salaries. This is because not all workers he claimed to have paid have actually received their salaries.
“What he has been doing is to pay 10 out of 300 workers in a ministry and then go to town with his propaganda that he has fully paid workers.
“Only last week, he electronically paid N13m into the accounts of each of the 16 local governments and collected the cash back from the council chairmen for purported joint projects like he did in his fraudulent poultry project in 2004.
“We are asking Fayose once again what he is doing with all the monies he saved from the empowerment programmes he cancelled. We also want to know where the election contract deductions of N650m monthly are going. Who are the beneficiaries? Are they more important than Ekiti workers?”
Reacting to the allegations, Fayose in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Idowu Adelusi, said it was “simply falsehood promoted to the most ridiculous level.”
The statement read, “Governor Fayose left office on October 16, 2006, eight months to the end of his tenure and Ekiti State had three governors within that period. Does it then make any sense that the same Fayose would come back eight years after to approve payment already made to three governors after him for himself?
“Let’s even assume that the eight months’ salary is to be paid, is the monthly salary of a governor more than N1m? How then does N1m per month equal N720m in eight months?
“Again, severance allowance is 300 percent of annual basic salary and the basic salary of a governor is not more than N2m. So can N2m in three places be equal to N720m?”
“This is simply falsehood promoted to the most ridiculous level and we wish the APC spokesperson, Taiwo Olatubosun, well in his lying assignment.
“Without mincing words, Olatubosun is doing a serious disservice to the image of his party. If people in his party are morons who can just believe anything, let him know that other Nigerians are not. He has turned himself to a jester, who opens his mouth and talks balderdash.”
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