Ekiti Poll: Fayemi funds self, APC gov candidate’s election with 2022 workers, pensioners’ salary budget

The Segun Oni Campaign Organisation (SOCO) has accused the governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, of diverting money earmarked for the payment of workers’ salary and pensioners’ gratuity to funding of the candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the next month’s governorship election in the state.

The governor was also alleged to have been funding his presidential bid basically from the allocation made for pensioners in the 2022 budget.

This was disclosed in a statement made available to journalists in Ado-Ekiti on Tuesday by the Director of Media and Publicity of SOCO, Mr Jackson Adebayo.

According to the organisation, the governor, who earmarked the sum of N1 billion for the payment of gratuity in the budget, had not paid “a dime since the January of this year,” while he continued to hire airplane at the rate of N18 million per charter for three times “amounting to N240 million in a week.”

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SOCO stressed that the governor had, in the last two weeks, directed that a sum of N500 million be taken from the deduction from the workers’ salary for mobilisation for the campaign of the APC candidate, Mr Biodun Oyebanji, as well as to buy voter’s cards at the rate of N20,000 per person, while those who were saddled with the responsibility of buying the cards were to retain N5,000 from the amount to be given to each seller.

The statement went further to disclose that an amount of N102 million was also taken from the money to pay for the APC presidential nomination form obtained by the governor last week and the logistics that accompanied the exercise.

SOCO, therefore, appealed to well-meaning sons and daughters of Ekiti State, particularly the elder statesmen, to prevail on the governor “to have mercy on the suffering workers and pensioners.”

It added that “the already worsened financial status of the state is currently receiving a bashing that may push it to the precipice.”