From Ekiti State comes the damning allegation by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, that a former Governor of the State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, diverted N4.1billion from workers entitlements to his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, while he was in office.
In a statement on Sunday, the Ekiti PDP said the discovery was made during the recent workers’ verification exercise ordered by Governor Ayodele Fayose.
The allegation came on the heels of claims by the APC that Gov. Fayose paid himself N720 million as his severance allowance in arrears.
The PDP statement, which was signed by its Publicity Secretary, Jackson Adebayo, alleged that the ex-governor used ghost workers to perpetrate the fraud.
Mr. Adebayo said, “Some of the money involved in the fraud amounting to N2.1 billion was withdrawn from the salary accounts of civil servants and moved to the APC secretariat for sharing from time to time in the four years that the APC government led by Fayemi lasted in Ekiti State.
“The missing deductions from workers’ salaries for the months of April, May, June July and August, 2014 running to about N1.8 billion was also traced to the APC secretariat.
“We have it on good authority that the missing deductions from civil servants’ salaries for five months were gathered together immediately it dawned on the Fayemi-led government that there will not be funds to maintain the party after Fayemi’s exit on October 16, 2014 because the party would not have access to the money from the ghost workers again”.
According to him, Mr. Fayemi gave as a parting gift to members of the state executive of the APC, N220 million, which was money set aside for payment of allowances of members of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC.
“It is just unfortunate that most of these facts are coming out now. Initially, we thought they were mere rumour; it is now clear that APC government deliberately robbed Ekiti workers of their entitlements in an unprecedented fraudulent manner that cannot even be imagined in a banana republic.
“We are calling on all the stakeholders, especially the traditional rulers in Ekiti State and across Nigeria to prevail on the leadership of the APC to return all the money so fraudulently moved to the party from the state’s account”, the PDP pleaded.
It said the refund of the deductions from workers’ salaries was imperative, considering the prevailing economic downturn the government of the state is facing due to the huge debt left behind by the immediate past administration of the APC.
