Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State, the Critic-in-Chief of all constituted authority except Governor Wike now has a dead civil servant to account for.
Earlier today, we learnt that Tope Afolayan, a civil servant in Ekiti State committed suicide. The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Alberto Adeyemi, has also confirmed the incident.
Afolayan worked in the Office of the Accountant-General as a Principal Executive Officer (PEO) on Grade Level 10. He reportedly hung himself by the ceiling of his house in the State capital, Ado Ekiti after months of complaining about his inability to pay his debts due to non-payment of arrears of salaries owed government workers.
Which is what is confusing …
Governor Ayodele Fayose had on the 25thof December, 2016 ensured the nation heard about his ability to finally pay workers after months of threatening to sack any of the civil servants that joined in on any industrial action to protest salary arrears.
On December 25th, in a statement issued and signed by the Chief Press Secretary to Fayose, Mr Idowu Adelusi, the State declared promotions for 15, 772 workers after paying them 2 months arrears and even Christmas bonuses. This was extended to workers in the local governments, teaching service and the core civil servants (a group to which the deceased belonged).
The statement said that the beneficiaries consisted mainly of those whose promotions were due since 2012, 2013 and 2014 and that the governor had consequently ordered that letters of promotion be given the affected workers without further delay even though the actual promotion status still remained nominal, as the cash backing for the exercise would be effective only from March 2017.
The statement also said categories of workers in the state had been paid two months salaries in December, while Christmas bonus would be paid immediately after the Christmas holiday.
Governor Fayose was quoted in the statement:
“We won’t deny our workers their dues and entitlements, economic recession or no economic recession, as leaders of the state, we must be fair to all and that is what we are doing. Our administration is resolute in giving the best to all Ekiti people, including those in the public service. This month alone, we have paid two salaries, we are also paying Christmas bonus after the holiday. We deliberately spaced the payment of the bonus so that after the Christmas holiday, workers will still have something to fall back on.”
Now, of the governor who knows where the speck in every other administration’s eye is, we ask: what salary arrears killed Tope Afolayan? It’s not even a month since these payments were purportedly made.
Creative mind. Enthusiast. Learner. Multipotentialite. And here, an assistant editor.
That’s the issue, when you talk too much, you forget to do the needful and therefore lie alot. Fayose is the greatest mistake Ekiti people ever made.