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Tag: Mike Bamidele

  • Ekiti 2018: Workers accuse Fayose of illegal data capturing

    The Enlightened Workers Forum (EWF), an interest group in the Ekiti State work force, has raised an alarm over an alleged plot by Governor Ayodele Fayose to rig the July 14 governorship election in favour of his party, PDP candidate Prof Kolapo Olusola Eleka.

    The group in a press statement made available to The Nation on Friday, said it has uncovered the voter’s card data capturing going on at the Peace Corps of Nigeria, Ekiti State Command Headquarters in Oke Ila area of Ado-Ekiti and Fajuyi mini pavilion.

    The EWF in a statement by its Coordinator, Mike Bamidele, maintained that the Ekiti Command of the PCN was acting on an agreement had with
    Fayose to collate, according to the Wards, Polling Units, the VIN and serial numbers on the voter’s cards belonging to members of the Corps.

    Denying the alleged rigging plot, the Commissioner for Information, Mr. Lanre Ogunsuyi, described the allegation as a figment of imagination of the group.

    Ogunsuyi said: “This is a figment of their imagination, all parties are busy mobilizing and training their supporters, party agents and enlightening the electorate ahead of the election.

    “No worker has submitted his card for any pecuniary gain and no cloning of cards is going on as alleged. What is going on are political parties, PCN members are free to join any political meeting of their choice.”

    The EWF said the alleged action was aimed at cloning the cards and double the vote count during the governorship election for the PDP candidate to emerge victorious at the poll.

    It claimed that Fayose had also requested for the bank details of the PCN members that have already submitted their PVCs for the purported data capturing with a promise to give each PCN members N10,000 a day to the election through bank alert.

    The group said: “Fayose, in his desperate moves to coerce the PCN Ekiti State Command into his devilish political tricks as the next month governorship election draws near had given the non-governmental security outfit State Employment Forms and promised to enlist their members into the State Public Service and also mobilize them as a secret security personnel to perpetrate rigging in the next month governorship election.

    “We advise the Ekiti State Command of the Peace Corps of Nigeria to steer clear of Fayose’s political antics ahead of July 14 governorship poll and not be party to any activity that could denigrate the good public image of the organisation.”

    Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Dr. Kayode Fayemi has warned Fayose against illegal collection of workers’ voter cards through coercion, saying “voters have inalienable right to vote for candidate of their choice.”

    An official circular was sighted in which Fayose ordered school principals and some interest groups among teachers to collect the names, bank accounts and voter cards details of teachers in public schools for profiling.

    A statement by Director, Media and Publicity of the Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organisation, Wole Olujobi, urged Fayose to stop alleged criminal and unauthorised collection of teachers and workers’ PVC numbers.

    Fayemi said workers should be allowed to cast their votes for their preferred candidates in the coming election without any fear of intimidation by the government or its officials.

    He added that compelling workers and teachers to submit their PVC numbers as a condition for salary and running grants payment or promotion amounted to undue intimidation and crude blackmail.

    Read Also: Ekiti 2018: Oni, Others Working For Fayemi’s Victory, says Bamidele

    Fayemi made these declarations while speaking with reporters in his Isan-Ekiti country home in Oye Local Government, the last town he visited in his three-week campaign tours of the 132 towns and villages in the 16 local government areas of the state.

    The APC candidate promised to provide visionary leadership through his Eight-point Agenda to redirect the state to the path of growth and development after four years of rudderless leadership of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

    He lamented that Fayose shut down the School of Agriculture Technology in Isan Ekiti and took away all the tractors and other modern farming tools in the school “at a time many other states are breaking new
    grounds in agriculture development and food sufficiency”.

    Fayemi explained that the College of Agriculture was designed to assist in training manpower in the agriculture sector that would in turn boost agricultural production in the state.

    He also lamented that Fayose “out of ignorance” stopped the Youth in Commercial Agricultural Development (YCAD) scheme by his administration, saying that all the poor decisions by Fayose’s administration had drastically affected agricultural production in the state.

    Fayemi promised to re-open the College of Agriculture and revitalise YCAD scheme, including other social security and empowerment schemes initiated by his last administration.

    He also said that the state government under his watch would build one cottage industry in each of the local government areas to provide
    employment for the teeming youth.

  • Ekiti workers to Fayose: We need our salaries, not Xmas clothes

    Ekiti workers to Fayose: We need our salaries, not Xmas clothes

    Government workers in Ekiti State have appealed to Governor Ayo Fayose to accord priorities to the payment of backlog of salary arrears owed them rather than giving their children Christmas clothes.

    They expressed regrets that many of them are dying of hunger while others who are afflicted with debilitating ailments and lack money to access quality healthcare delivery.

    Acting under the aegis of the Enlightened Workers’ Forum (EWF), they welcomed the directive from the Presidency that governors should clear all arrears owed workers before Christmas.

    In a press statement made available to The Nation on Friday, EWF Coordinator, Mike Bamidele, criticised the decision of the governor to provide free Christmas clothes to 20,000 children in the state.

    Describing the Free Xmas Clothes for Kids project as a “misplaced priority,” Bamidele said workers’ salaries should remain the governors’ priority rather than “unnecessary grandstanding and splurge on frivolities.”

    Bamidele said hunger occasioned by the non-payment of salaries has unleashed hardship on workers some of whom, he said are dying of hunger and ailments the can’t treat.

    He said: “We are still at a loss why the governor still owes core civil servants five months arrears, workers in institutions on subventions seven months and local government workers and primary school teachers nine months.

    “Rather than making sincere and concrete efforts to pay our salaries, the governor is busy distributing Christmas clothes for 20,000 children.

    “If he pays their parents regularly, it will be easy for them to buy clothes for their children. It is not the business of government to be buying Christmas clothes for children and this has turned Ekiti to a laughing stock.

    “Offering to buy Christmas clothes for children when salaries are not paid is an attempt to play politics with the poverty of the people and turn the innocent kids to pawns on the political chess board.

    “We reject this Christmas Clothes for Children project in its entirety; all we need are our salaries and allowances. Let the governor look for means to pay them so that we can have relief.

    “A labourer deserves his wages and the sweat of his labour must not dry on his forehead. We have worked for this money, it is our right and not privilege, the governor must pay our salaries.

    “We are also using this medium to call on the Federal Government to investigate how bailout funds, Paris Club refunds, Budget Support Funds sent to Ekiti State were spent.

    “We believe if these monies are deployed to payment of workers, all these arrears would have been offset by now.”

  • Labour leaders betrayed us, say ekiti workers

    Labour leaders betrayed us, say ekiti workers

    …NLC Chair: it’s not true

    Workers in Ekiti State have accused labour leaders of betraying them by agreeing to a one month pay out of the six months owed them by the state government.

    They described the failure of the union leaders’ decision to convince the government to pay at least three months as a “coup against the long-suffering workers who had endured misery, hunger and hardship in the last six months.”

    According to a bulletin released on Tuesday by the Enlightened Workers’ Forum (EWF), an interest group signed by the Coordinator, Mike Bamidele, the workers claimed that they have evidence that the labour leaders received N10 million bribe to end the strike.

    The group faulted the decision of the labour leaders to suspend the strike and agreed to monthly payment of N10 million to pensioners which it described as grossly inadequate doubting the government’s capacity to access another bailout funds owing to the stringent conditions attached.

    Bamidele said it was a mark of failure for the leaders of the state councils of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Joint Negotiating Council (JNC) to hurriedly suspend the strike after being promised only one month pay by the government.

    He described as very “irresponsible” the directive issued to workers by one of the labour chiefs to resume work and await the payment of one month salary seven days after suspending the strike.

    The EWF boss revealed that the untold story of the whole saga was that “the labour leaders only succeeded in negotiating their own welfare as we have evidence that six of them collected N10 million which eventually led to the sell-out which is already causing ripples among other leaders who were left out.”

    Bamidele said: “One wonders what gave Labour the impression that the Federal Government would again be willing to release another bailout to Fayose when the first one had not been accounted for.

    “This is a mark of failure on the part of the Organized Labour and we in the EWF are not surprised about the development as we had anticipated this failure right from the onset.

    “Against this background, therefore, it will be wrong and illegal for any Labour to attempt to coerce the workers back to work through the back doors without achieving anything. Negotiating one month salary on their behalf after about five weeks strike is not only anti-worker but also criminal.”

    While denying the allegation, the state NLC Chairman, Ade Adesanmi, denied the workers’ allegation challenging anyone with evidences of bribery against them to come out with same.

    Adesanmi: “I didn’t sign the pact with government culminating in this resumption because I compromised, I signed because of the fear that this allocation may be spent without the payment of worker salaries.

    “The same workers we were fighting for were coming to work during the strike to assist government in spending monies that could have been kept and added to the current allocation to pay workers. This is highest level of wickedness and prosperity will judge all of us.”

     

  • We won’t participate in politically-motivated strike – Ekiti workers

    A section of workers in Ekiti State public service has vowed not to participate in any politically-motivated strike intended to drag them into the politics of impeachment currently rocking the state.

    Acting under the aegis of Enlightened Workers’ Forum, they asked for the payment of outstanding salaries, bonuses and other entitlements owed them by the state government.

    In a statement issued on Friday by the Forum’s Coordinator, Mike Bamidele, they warned Labour leaders against colluding with politicians to engineer a strike to frustrate the impeachment proceedings already launched by the 19 All Progressives Congress lawmakers in the state.

    They called on the state councils of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Joint Negotiation Council (JNC) to concentrate on fighting for the interests of the workers rather than dabbling into partisan politics.

    The Forum called on the unions to drop the garb of politics and exert pressure on the Ayo Fayose administration to pay worker’ salaries, leave bonus and accumulated pensions and gratuities of retirees.

    It further charged the unions to champion the implementation of 2013 and 2014 outstanding promotions.

    The Forum also warned the state government against reducing workers’ salaries over shortfall in allocation from the Federation Account.