Aiyedatiwa’s 344 aides appointment ploy to manipulate poll — PDP’s Ajayi

The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the forthcoming off-cycle gubernatorial election in Ondo State, Agboola Ajayi, has stated that the appointment of 344 Senior Special Assistants (SSAs) and Special Assistants (SAs) is a strategy to manipulate the poll.

While noting that the appointments resemble ward canvassers for the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ajayi disclosed that the trick will not work in the state come November 16.

In a statement issued by his Campaign Organisation’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ayo Fadaka, the PDP candidate described the move as criminal, stating that the aides were appointed with no stipulated duties or responsibilities.

Ajayi added that the huge remuneration to be expended on the newly appointed aides would amount to sheer wastage of the state’s resources amid the economic downturn and hardships in the land.

He said: “Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa continues to remain a pitiable sight as the helmsman of our state; his acclaimed rudderlessness and incompetence are consistently impressed on our psyche, as he misses no such opportunity to prove it.

“The appointment on Friday of three hundred and forty-four aides is a ridiculous action of a governor who is at sea over choices to make for the advancement of our state, confused largely over what should extend the frontiers of our development but chose to prosecute petty partisanship desires at the expense of good government, thus again confirming his unsuitability for the governorship seat he currently occupies, which he consistently uses to retard our quest for economic and societal growth.

“To appoint three hundred and forty-four aides with no specific governmental responsibilities and defined functions is criminal, particularly when due cognisance is taken of the fact that their remuneration per month is going to cost the government about N1.2 billion. In fact, their number and the resources to be expended on them are enough to begin a new ministry!

“We declare that it is ridiculous and wrong for Lucky Aiyedatiwa to appoint APC Ward Canvassers as Senior Special Assistants and Special Assistants; Ondo State has never been this unlucky!

“We, however, assure him and his party that this trick will not work; the people of Ondo State have since rejected him and his party of hardship, pain, and hunger, APC; they are merely waiting for November 16th to firmly stamp it at the polls; therefore, we will bear with equanimity and strength every one of their misdeeds and punish them accordingly at the polls.

“We remain alert and advise Aiyedatiwa to abandon his desire to implement the Kogi rigging model here, as it will be firmly resisted, and backfire on him and his accomplices with deep consequences. The PDP, and in fact, the people of Ondo State, are keenly watching every step they are taking.

“Conclusively, we state that if an assemblage of massive SSAs and SAs didn’t work in the past, it is not going to work now; our only regret, however, is that Ondo State is currently in the grip of the incompetents who cannot decipher the limits to which officialdom cannot push.”