FG sets stage for Fayose to fail, allegedly withholds allocation

The federal government may have quietly drawn a battle line with the governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose.

The governor has cried out that the government at the centre has allegedly failed to release the state’s monthly federal allocation and budget support of the state for the month of January.

The governor, who claimed his state is the only one suffering the treatment as other states have received theirs, accused the Federal Government of deliberately doing that to fight him politically in order to give the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state soft landing in the 2018 governorship poll.

He stated this at a press conference at the Government House, Ado-Ekiti.

According to him, “It is unavoidably necessary to bring to the public domain the current harassment, oppression and intimidation of my office and the people of Ekiti State by the Federal Government because of my stand on national issues.

Read also: The worst day in my life – Obasanjo 

“In the last three, four weeks, after the Federal Allocation Account Committee (FAAC) meeting, it is sad that Ekiti federal allocation for January has not been released.

“Also, the budget support, for which, all states in Nigeria signed an ISPO, Ekiti remains the only state not paid for January. And, it seems this is deliberate because, up till now, no excuse or explanation has been given. I have written to the Federal Ministry of Finance, my commissioner has been there, as well as the Central Bank of Nigeria, yet, nobody is ready to talk to us. We contacted the minister, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, all the directors at the Ministry of Finance everybody are shying away from talking to us, for the last 10 days now.

“It is important to note that the allocation and budget support from Abuja is our legitimate right. We have done the needful on our part and nobody from their end has queried the process. I don’t know why the average civil servant in Ekiti should be made to suffer because of politics; it is not my salary, it is the salary of Ekiti civil servants.

“Doing this in the name of politics and to destabilise this state is not in line with the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I am reminding them and speaking to Nigerians that the statutory allocation for local governments in Lagos State was stopped, then, by the Federal Government during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration and it was fought until the money was paid. I think we have gone past that kind of episode.

“I want to appeal to the government, I want to appeal to the Ministry of Finance, not to allow themselves to be used to oppress Ekiti civil servants. This state has been running peacefully well, supporting me. If this is a political attempt to cause chaos in the state, it will not stand. I will not also be cowed from saying the truth,” he said.

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