The President, Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, Ekiti State Branch, Oluseyi Olatunde, has said that the former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, lacks necessary ideas about the workings of the local government system.
Olatunde spoke in a statement in Ado Ekiti on Tuesday in response to Fayose’s statement during a television interview that “most council officials do not take their work seriously”.
The NULGE president said, “Such a mischievous 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 likes who are opposed to the realities of the local government autonomy.”
Fayose had, while expressing opposition to autonomy for councils granted last week by the Supreme Court, stressed that nobody from the grassroots can emerge as a local government chairman without the support of a governor, the Ekiti politician said both the court and FG ‘cannot take the baby from the mother.’
But the NULGE president, who disagreed with Fayose, said, “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 a 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.”