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The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State said on Thursday that the state governor-elect, Mr. Seyi Makinde, is already being haunted by the electoral promises he made.
The party said that it is too early for Mr. Makinde to renege on his electoral promises, admonishing him to focus on the art of governance and work towards fulfilling his electoral promises.
The Publicity Secretary of the party, Dr AbdulAzeez Olatunde, said this in a statement issued in reaction to comments credited to Makinde’s spokesman, Mr. Dotun Oyelade, who warned the APC not to twist the interview Makinde granted in Abuja as regards the N30,000 minimum wage implementation.
This followed Makinde’s position that states should have been allowed to fix their own minimum wage according to their abilities to pay.
Makinde, while speaking to journalists in Abuja on Wednesday after the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) induction programme for incoming and returning governors, had said about the newly signed minimum wage: “It has been signed into law. I personally believe that individual states should have been allowed to negotiate this because conditions of living in Lagos are obviously not the same as living in Ibadan.
“And I will definitely say without fear or favour that it’s part of the reasons why we are thinking of restructuring. That’s a federal system of government.
“We have a federation but the state governments I believe, are no subordinate to the federal government. They are coordinate governments.
“Then, when the federal government makes a law that says ‘well, we are going to pay 30,000 as minimum wage,’ what’s the condition in my state? Can we support it? I don’t think.
“We are going to engage the Nigeria Labour Congress in my state and we see how we go from there.”
But in his reaction, Dr Olatunde stated: “Makinde said during his electoral campaign that Oyo workers deserved more than N30,000 as minimum wage. Now, he was quoted by the media in Abuja that he can’t pay the N30,000 minimum wage. We (APC) decided not to comment on Makinde’s electoral promise U-turn because we want electorates and the people of Oyo State to judge him while the party would not hesitate to provide the necessary constructive criticisms when the need arises.”
According to the APC spokesman, “the people of Oyo State deserve the best and we hope Makinde’s PDP will try not to disappoint which is doubtful. It is is too early for Makinde to be reprimanding others for his mistakes. APC was not the media that reported what Makinde said in Abuja. We expected Makinde to rather clear the air on his statement instead of blame shifting. We wish him the best in his endeavors but with a caution that it is too early to renege on his electoral promises.
Earlier in the week, Makinde wrote an open letter to Governor Abiola Ajimobi, urging him to stop the Pilgrims Board from making Hajj plans which were well beyond May 29 when he would be taking over.
Reacting to that, Olatunde said: “We want to urge him to tread softly on the issue of Hajj operation. He should by now know that pilgrimage is structured with timing for all participating pilgrims throughout the world. It is not just about Oyo State pilgrims. We appeal to him to stop displaying his naivety about governance and remind him that not everything especially pilgrimage is politicized”