S'WEST PDP REJECTS TAMBUWAL
The South-west caucus of the Peoples Democratic Party (pdp) has formally rejected the emergence of Aminu Waziri Tambuwal as the speaker of the House of Representatives.
The Oyo State scribe of the party, Bashiru Akanbi, disclosed this in a chat with reporters in Ibadan yesterday. Akanbi maintained that the party in the region had officially protested the zoning of the speaker of the lower house out of the region.
The PDP chief decried the sidelining of the South-west from the upper echelon of the Federal Government, saying the zone would not watch itself relegated in the affairs of the nation with the new arrangement.
Mulikat Adeola Akande from the state had contested and lost the position, which was zoned by the party to the South-west to Tambuwal in a seeming revolt by the representatives. This has disrupted the zoning arrangement of the PDP, leaving the South-west out of national official power.
According to Akanbi, 'the number four citizen in the country was zoned to the South-west and we are ready to reclaim our position in the country. We all worked for the party to win at the federal level and we should partake of the sharing formular.
'I can assure you that PDP will still go back to the zoning arrangement and with that the PDP South-west would reclaim the House of Representatives speaker seat. The parties are the ones that arrange the zoning like that; they are the people that put us at the number four position and we are saying we want our number four seat back; it is very simple.'
On alleged anti-party activities of some stalwarts of the party in the state before and during April elections, the party scribe disclosed that former Senate leader, Senator Teslim Folarin and some chieftains of the party had been recommended for sanctioning by the National Working Committee of the party.
Commenting on the alleged withdrawal of N3 billion five days to the exit of former governor, Adebayo Alao-Akala, the party scribe warned against unfounded rumour, advising that the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) administration in the state should always check data and figures before raising any alarm.
'I am challenging Governor Abiola Ajimobi to tell the whole world whether the money was for personal purpose or to pay contractors for jobs attested to by the state contract monitoring team. Akala did not steal Oyo State money but paid contractors as well as settling severance allowances of political office holders in the state including that of the former governor, Rashidi Ladoja from 2003 till 2007,' he added.
The PDP secretary then urged Ajimobi to face the business of governance with seriousness rather than engaging in frivolities and raising of false alarm to win people's sympathy, especially on the N18,000 minimum wage for civil servants in the state adding that, 'it will be wrong for Governor Ajimobi to be saying the administration of Otunba Akala hurriedly signed the minimum wage payment.'
He declared that despite signing the agreement with the labour leaders immediately after President Jonathan signed the minimum wage law, the immediate past administration in the state left more than the N4.2 billion needed for the payment of the minimum wage and the N4.8 billion to settle contractors being owed by the state government.