Ekiti labour leaders bribed with N30m to frustrate Fayose’s impeachment — APC

All Progressives Congress (APC), in Ekiti State, has accused the leadership of organised labour in the state of collecting a staggering sum of N30 million to frustrate attempts by the 19 lawmakers on the platform of the APC to impeach Governor Ayodele Fayose.

The party said the labour top brass had conspired with the state government to shut down all government offices to prevent the 19 lawmakers from sitting.

The tenure of the present assembly, dominated by APC would expire on June 6, 2015.

The party said it had uncovered alleged plans by Governor Ayodele Fayose to influence the labour leaders with the intention to prolong labour crisis by way of closing down all government offices across the state in a grand conspiracy against the APC lawmakers to prevent them from going ahead with the impeachment proceedings against the governor.

The party, in a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatubosun, said ‘it was rather selfish and wicked for labour leaders to go behind the workers to negotiate a multi-million naira deal for their private pockets while herding other workers on partisan protest that is clearly against the service rule.’

Urging labour leaders not to drag Ekiti workers into politics, the party expressed dismay over partisan roles being played by labour leaders in flagrant abuse of labour law for personal benefits.

“The party was aware that some Labour leaders had so far allegedly collected N30 million from the government for various solidarity rallies in the last six months. Some of these labour leaders would soon instigate the innocent workers to a politically-motivated industrial action that would last till the middle of June.”

Olatubosun explained that this option was preferred to the earlier plan by the government to declare a forced 10-day holiday starting from May 29 for a phoney celebration of the handing over to the new government.

According to him, the party has information that the deal was struck with the labour at a meeting with the governor on‎ the 27th of April where the two options were considered, including a prolonged holiday from May 29 through first week of June and contrivance of workers anger through half payment of April salary that would force workers to declare indefinite strike.

Olatubosun alleged that by this agreement on the second option, labour is expected to shut down all government institutions for a fee of N10 million to avert the impending impeachment of the governor by the 19 APC legislators.

The party accused some labour leaders of partisanship, alleging that some NUT and NULGE leaders were known as card-carrying members of PDP who were working with the governor to protect their political interest instead of the collective interest of workers.

Olatubosun noted that this was exactly the politics behind JUSUN strike that paralysed all the courts across the state, which made the workers to remain idle while the labour leaders lined their pockets.

But dispelling the allegation, the Vice Chairman of the NLC in the state, Con Samuel Akosile, said : “That is a mischievous and ridiculous thought. Our position as a union has been that since people gave the governor a four-year mandate, he should be allowed to govern the state.

“If they are saying they want to impeach the governor, they are not doing the people of the state any good. Nobody has agreed with the government to pay half salary and nobody is talking about strike.

“Our advice is that they (APC lawmakers) should reason with the people and drop the impeachment plan. All we want is peace in Ekiti State”, he said.