Ekiti 2022: Kolawole berates APC for sacking workers

Emmanuel AmudaApril 5, 2022

2 minutes read

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in Ekiti State, Bisi Kolawole, has described the sack of workers of Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, by the All Progressives Congress government as inhuman and wicked.

Kolawole, in a statement issued on Monday by the spokesperson of Bisi Kolawole Campaign Organisation, Lere Olayinka, alleged that the termination of employment was carried out under Governor Kayode Fayemi’s orders.

He said, “By employing over 3,000 workers, PDP has shown its love for Ekiti people and by sacking the over 3,000 workers, including teachers and civil servants, APC has shown itself as a party of wicked people. Only wicked people go about denying their fellow human beings their sources of livelihood.

“PDP government-employed workers; APC government sacked them and in continuation of their wickedness, they have picked as their party candidate, a man who carried out Fayemi’s inhuman instruction of terminating the employment of over 1,000 Ekiti sons and daughters in EKSU.

“The governor and his men, especially the APC governorship candidate, Biodun Oyebanji, who was instrumental to the workers’ sack when he was in the Governing Council of EKSU, should realise that the sacked workers are their fellow Ekiti brothers and sisters.”

Kolawole also assured the sacked workers of their reinstatement should the APC government fail to heed the court judgment.

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“Even though we know that Fayemi and his APC party do not have a history of obedience to court judgments, we will still have to appeal to the remnants of their conscience to obey this judgement by the Appeal Court reinstating the sacked workers.

“However, they should not despair. If in its usual characteristics of ignoring court judgements, this APC government declined to reinstate them, they should rest assured that by October 16, 2022, they will return to their duty posts,” he added.

Newsflash Nigeria had earlier reported that the Appeal Court sitting in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State capital, on Monday, had ordered the Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado Ekiti, to reinstate 85 non-teaching staff members sacked by the institution in December 2019.

Recall that the management of the state university had on December 5, 2019, under the government of Kayode Fayemi, disengaged over 900 of its workforce for alleged certificate forgery, irregular appointment and overage, among other sundry allegations.

The disengaged EKSU staff subsequently dragged the university authority to the National Industrial Court (NIC) in Akure and got a judgment nullifying their sack. However, the university authority was yet to obey the court judgment.

Some of the affected workers have approached the Court of Appeal Court sitting in Ado Ekiti, which ordered the reinstatement of the disengaged staff.

The judge, Tunde Awotoye, also gave the university a 30-day ultimatum to pay the reinstated workers their salaries, emoluments, and allowances from the date of their unlawful disengagement till date.

In the judgement delivered on Monday, April 4, the court also directed the university to pay the workers the three months salary they were being owed before they unlawfully disengaged.