Ekiti Poll: Oyebamiji, APC candidate begs school pupils to convince parents to vote him
...June 18 is payback time for repressing us -Teachers
A pro-Segun Oni group, the Ekiti Build Back Better (EBBB), has accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State of turning schools compounds in the state into campaign grounds for its governorship candidate, Mr Biodun Oyebanji.
The EBBS spokesman, Idowu Adelusi, in a press statement made available to journalists in Ado-Ekiti on Sunday, said when the ruling party discovered lately that it was likely to lose the June 18 election to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, "it resorted to doing the unthinkable by going to secondary schools to beg pupils to convince their parents to vote for BAO."
Though the teachers, EBBB learned, told the campaign team that the teachers would use the election day to pay back the Kayode Fayemi-led administration with disgrace for forcing them to teach with empty stomachs.
The EBBB described this move of the APC as "a reckless child abuse and cowardly act by a government which often claims to be advocate of child's rights protection."
It queried the morality behind carrying political campaigns to students and teachers in their schools.
The group recalled that the APC had earlier planned to disenfranchise many of the teachers "so that they are not able to vote on the election day, because of strong belief in the government's circle that they will vote for the SDP candidate instead of BAO.
"The government had schemed to collect their PVCs from them at N10,000 per card, and later return them after they had changed the original voting destination on the card to a far destination.
"But the plan was bursted and the teachers refused to release their PVCs.
"Should the APC throw morality into the wind because it wants to get Oyebanji into power at all costs, forgetting that the teachers and workers who the Fayemi administration had told to go to hell are not morons?" the EBBB asked.
The group's spokesman revealed that the chairman of the Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM), Mr. B. J. Abegunde, was recruited by the BAO Campaign Organisation to lead the team and that he had been going round secondary schools, trying to persuade both teachers and pupils to go for BAO.
"The TESCOM boss was even quoted to have told the teachers that since Oyebanji's parents and spouse are teachers, he would be a teachers-friendly governor.
"However, the teachers were quick to reply the TESCOM boss that Oyebanji was Secretary to the State Government (SSG) that has refused to pay the retired teachers their pensions and gratuities.
"They said 'it is the same government that is making us to teach with empty stomach; a government that is owing us arrears of salaries; a government that has not paid our leave bonuses since 2018.
"We currently have hundreds of teachers on grade level 15 by promotion, but who are collecting level 12 salaries; there are promotions without financial backing.
"Most of the incentives teachers were enjoying were cancelled by Governor Fayemi.
"Do you expect the teachers to hope for anything better from Oyebanji?'"
Adelusi revealed that in most schools visited by Abegunde and his team, the teachers were too cold towards them, although they decided to play along with the BAO team to avoid been penciled in for sack.
"Similarly, some government officials who were conscripted into the Abegunde team were not on the same page with their boss on the mission, as this could be seen through their body language as well," he said.
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