1 month ago
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Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa of Ondo State
The Ondo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party has criticised the state Governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, over the approval of N73,000 minimum wage to the state civil servants.
Aiyedatiwa, on Saturday, at the kick-off of his campaign ahead of the November 16 governorship election, announced the approval of the minimum wage to workers, but the opposition party alleged that the governor was insincere over the amount.
In a statement issued by the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity of the PDP Campaign Organisation, Ayo Fadaka, on Sunday, described the governor’s gesture as a mere Greek gift to cajole the workers to vote for him in the forthcoming poll.
The PDP also described Aiyedatiwa’s administration as a failure to the people of the state and was seeking ways to cajole the workers, saying he should have increased the workers’ salaries before the present time.
The statement read, “We notice with amusement Governor Aiyedatiwa’s decision to raise the minimum wage in Ondo State from the federal government approved N70,000 to a paltry N73,000. This is obviously a hollow pretense that is calculated to present him as a workers’ friendly Governor, an assumption which falls flat on his face when due cognisance is taken of his failure to do this increment many months back. The fact that he is just doing this now is a mere pretence.
“In a brazen display of desperation, this marginal wage increment serves as a flimsy attempt to curry favour with the electorate, masking his administration’s colossal failures across every critical sector. It is a move that reeks of calculated deceit, aimed not at alleviating the suffering of the people but at securing their votes through shallow tokenism.”
The statement argued that if Aiyedatiwa was a leader who genuinely cared about the welfare of his people, he would have since addressed the root causes of “Ondo State’s challenges—poverty, unemployment, and the decay of essential services.”
It added, “His administration has been defined by neglect, indifference, and a stark lack of empathy for the plight of the common man; rather than champion sustainable development and meaningful progress, he has opted to dangle this meagre wage increase as a political carrot, a last-ditch effort to manipulate and hoodwinked the electorate in pursuit of his selfish political survival.”
Reacting, the Senior Special Assistant to the governor on Strategic Communications, Allen Sowore, said the allegation by the PDP was baseless and showed that the opposition party was ignorant of the performance of the current administration.
“The first thing to understand is that the minimum wage is a law—an Act of the National Assembly—that must be implemented by all governors in Nigeria. What Governor Aiyedatiwa has done is simply add an extra N3,000 to the minimum wage, which is commendable.
“As for the timing, it’s important to note that anything worth doing is worth doing right away. The Ondo State government had already set up a tripartite committee to work out the consequential adjustments from Level 1 to Level 17, and this process has been ongoing for some time. However, the opposition pretends as if all of this is happening just now.
“It is clear that the PDP has run out of ideas. Recently, they’ve resorted to inaccurate reports, blackmail, and propaganda. Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa has consistently prioritized the welfare of state workers since assuming office. In Ondo State, salaries are paid promptly, and even pensioners are not neglected.”
