By Oluwakemi Ishola
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State, has decried the People’s Democratic Party (PDP’s) disruption and hijacking of the recruitment process of the Federal Government Special Public Works Scheme which was held between last week Thursday and Friday.
A whopping sum of Fifty-two billion naira has been allocated for the SPWP in the 2020 budget. It is aimed at employing 774,000 citizens, a thousand from each of the local government council in the country and in the case of Oyo state, it was expected that 33, 000 residents would be considered to benefit in the scheme.
In a statement issued on Tuesday in Ibadan and made available to journalists by its Assistant Publicity Secretary, Prince Ayobami Adejumo, Oyo APC alleged that the whole exercise was disrupted by members of the ruling PDP who “hijacked and flawed the project which was meant to be a Social Intervention Programme designed for the overall benefit of the teeming population of the Nigerian masses.
“In their usual character, leaders and members of the Peoples Democratic Party took the advantage of being in government in the state to disrupt the exercise in most local government council Secretariats where officials of National Directorate of Employment (NDE) were deployed to distribute recruitment forms to prospective beneficiaries without any discrimination.
“It became a show of shame in most council Secretariats on both days (Thursday and Friday last week), when chieftains and members of the Oyo PDP as well as some political appointees of Gov. Seyi Makinde mobilized members of their party and some fiece-looking thugs to alter the peaceful process being carried out by the relevant officials. In the process, they harassed NDE personnel deployed for the exercise and seized the registration forms which they carted away and later distributed to only their party loyalists and members of their families.
“There are reports and documentary evidences in support of this claim as many hapless members of the society who trooped out with a view to obtaining the forms were denied their rights. In Ibadan North, Ibadan North East, Lagelu, Akinyele, Ibarapa East, Iwajowa, Ogo-Oluwa, Afijio, Oyo East, Saki East and other LGAs, the story was the same as PDP members unleashed terror on officials and innocent citizens in a bid to take possession of all the registration forms.
“Although, this development did not come as a surprise to the good people of the state who had been made to understand that the leopard in the Oyo PDP would not change its skin in view of the precious record of violence, brigandage and lawlessness in the state. Only recently, attempts by the governor himself to distribute some of the Covid-19 relief items donated by CACOVID ostensibly among the residents did not happen without eruption of violence which reportedly claimed the life of one Miss Raimi Rokeebat in Odinjo area of Ibadan, the state capital.
“As a matter of fact, the Implementation Committee members appointed for the exercise in our dear state have been overwhelmed by the antics of the PDP gladiators who see the project as another opportunity to steal from federal purse at the expense of original beneficiaries. It is on this premise that we are urging the federal government, through the Ministry of Labour and Productivity, to review the registration exercise in Oyo state and act promptly in the interest of the general masses.” APC stated.
