By Priscilla Campbell,
Minna
The Niger State chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has called on Governor Abubakar Sani Bello to resign his position or pay workers the new minimum wage of N30, 000.
The governor had boosted, almost a year ago, that he was ready to pay.
The PDP via its state Chairman, Tanko Beji, said that the governor ought not to have allowed a Labour dispute about wages and rights of workers to culminate into a total strike action.
According to him, the governor’s disregard to the workers’ demend was a classic case of dereliction of duty.
His words: “If you contrast the demands of the workers to the extravagant expenditure his government incurs on other non-relevant issues, like building of fence, adventure to sign MoUs and failed investment summit.
“Worst still, Governor Sani Bello has abandoned the state and this is Day 2 of the strike action that has completely paralyzed all hospitals and essential services in the state that is already economically on its knee due to cluelessness, pilfrage and governance failures of the past five years.”
Beji argued that Governor Bello who has maintained that he didn’t promise anything during his campaigns ought to know that the littlest of any government is provision of security of lives and properties of citizens, adding, “failure of which should be either resign or be impeached. But any less is not acceptable.
“It is painful that the governor continuously puts his cart before the horse. Only recently the governor gave brand new Hilux trucks to the 25 council chairmen at the time the security situation is deteriorating in the state.
“One would expect that similar or same vehicles and other logistics would be provided to the security agencies like the police, NSCDC and the Army who are already in the trenches battling the insurgents.”
The PDP, frowning at what it called a clear case of misadventure by the governor is dragging the lives and properties of Nigerlites into the insecurity occasioned by the failed and non-coherent security architecture in the state.
“An all out strike action will be disastrous. It is against this that the PDP calls on the Governor and his party to immediately pay workers their legally approved salaries, provide political and strategic leadership to the security architecture or immediately resign or the House of Assembly should do the needful.”
