Stop Visiting Schools To Campaign, APC Tells Fayose

The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has criticised Governor Ayodele Fayose and the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Prof. Kolapo Olusola, for visiting public schools to canvass votes.

The APC said visiting public schools during school hours to disrupt academic exercise was desperation taken too far and a condemnable and reckless politicking that has no merit in modern democratic governance.

A statement in Ado-Ekiti by the Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, said, “It is regrettable that Fayose and his deputy have constituted themselves to a nuisance in our secondary schools across the state by turning the institutions to campaign grounds to disrupt academic activities.

“It is politics taken too far for Fayose and PDP candidate to go about schools taking hours to disrupt academic activities of the underage children in secondary schools.

“This singular move has confirmed our initial cries that Fayose, Eleka, and the PDP were involved in the registration of underaged children in the secondary schools across the state during the continuous voters’ registration by INEC.

“It is very unfortunate that the students who are supposed to be seriously engaged in preparations for either NECO or promotional examinations are now the targets of being conscripted into electoral illegality by a failed government,” he said.

Berating Fayose for adopting “ambush tactics” to seek the support of students and teachers after failing to pay their salaries for eight months despite collecting intervention funds to settle workers’ wages, Olatunbosun accused the governor of unconscionable conduct in “his selfish pursuit of private comfort while the teachers and their children suffer.”

He also accused Fayose of alleged election fraud by going around schools to collect teachers’ voter cards for a fee after which the cards were allegedly photocopied and taken to the governor.

He said, “It is unconscionable for Fayose and Eleka to be going round secondary schools to woo teachers and students for electoral advantage during school hours during which each secondary school is given N500,000 and we wonder what that miserable pittance will do to alleviate the sufferings of the people who have not received their salaries in the last eight months.”

Olatunbosun urged Fayose to stop his anti-democratic conduct by allowing teachers to make their free choices in the July 14 poll.

He also urged the governor to pay the eight months arrears of workers and teachers’ salaries, including payment of pensioners’ entitlements.