Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose has been involved in a heated exchange with the All Progressives Congress in the state over who is to blame for the non-payment of workers’ salaries. While Fayose attributes his administration’s inability to pay salaries to a huge debt burden inherited from the past APC government, the party says if anyone is to blame, it is the governor and his lack of imagination.
Elected political leaders in the country are wont to use the activities of their predecessors as a convenient excuse for failure, but they never allow such reasons to deter them during the fierce contests for office. The truth is that Fayose is at liberty to bring to justice any past leader he has evidence of financial misconduct against – just like the APC federal government is doing. If he is not prosecuting anybody in connection with the government’s failure to pay workers, then trying to link his predecessor with the salary issue can only be a lame excuse for non-performance.
Besides, finding creative alternatives to the problems associated with dwindling federal allocations and paucity of internally generated revenue was Fayose’s main grounds for seeking office as governor. If he is confessing inability to fulfil that promise, then he has no good reason to remain in office.
– Vincent Obia
