The Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, Ekiti State branch, on Tuesday, lambasted former Governor Ayodele Fayose over his attack on LG workers following the Supreme Court’s judgment upholding LG’s financial autonomy.
The Ekiti NULGE President, Oluseyi Olatunde, said Fayose lacked ideas about the working of the LGs and deliberately impoverished Ekiti council workers when he held sway as governor.
The NULGE President was reacting to Fayose’s comment on LG autonomy during a television interview.
Fayose, while expressing opposition to the Supreme Court judgment that granted autonomy to the LGs in the country, alleged that most council officials did not take their work seriously.
Fayose stated, “Go to the council on Wednesday or Friday, and you will not find 10 per cent of the staff of the local government in the office. They don’t come. My name is Ayo Fayose and I want them to dispute this.
“They don’t come to work. When you make moves to bring them to book, both NULGE and all leaders of the local government will go and beg the governor. They will be telling you, we will not vote for you. This is the way we operate at the local government.
“The state is more effective in administrative performance than the local government. At the local government, everybody comes to collect money. Even people have left some states. They live somewhere else and money just hit their accounts.”
But reacting on Tuesday, the Ekiti NULGE President described Fayose’s claim as mischievous, saying, “The statement is not the true picture of local government practice in Nigeria and in Ekiti State in particular.”
“It is a mere fallacy cooked up by Fayose and his like who are opposed to the realities of the local government autonomy.”
NULGE called on Fayose to withdraw the statement and tender an unreserved apology to the council workers.
“We call on Fayose to humbly withdraw the vexatious statement and tender unreserved apology to the council workers who he had discredited, blackmailed and portrayed in bad light in the eyes of right thinking public.
“Council workers in Ekiti State are very productive and this is evident in the various developmental progress made so far by all the councils, including the Local Council Development Areas created in the state.
“The leadership of NULGE is not surprised at the negative outburst of Fayose who, during his time as governor of Ekiti State, ran the councils like his private business and reduced the office of the council chairman to that of a puppet.
“Not that alone, he impoverished local government workers through his obnoxious policy of using three federal allocations to pay a month’s salary, which resulted in unpaid salaries accumulating in arrears of nine months, despite the huge bailout funds the state received from the Federal Government.
“In no way did Fayose use the funds to bail local government workers out of the huge financial mess he plunged us into. We are grateful to President Bola Tinubu, the judiciary and well-meaning Nigerians who fought for the local government autonomy,” he said.
Olatunde said the response to Fayose’s criticism was to set the records straight and dissuade members of the public from being fed with wrong information.
“We, initially, did not want to respond to the statement made by Fayose, but for the necessity to set records straight and dissuade members of the public from being fed with fallacious information that may put local government workers in a bad light.
“The assertion that council workers don’t go to work is false and should be disregarded. Council workers have been delivering optimal services at their respective councils, and where there are shortages of facilities or equipment to work with, workers in such situations are often redeployed to other beats,” the NULGE President said.