By; Oladele Adedayo, Ado-Ekiti.
The Ekiti State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state of planning to cause mayhem in the state capital, Ado-Ekiti in what they term as a solidarity protest in support of workers who are on industrial action in the state.
In a statement by the PDP State Publicity Secretary, Mr. Jackson Adebayo which was made available to journalists in Ado-Ekiti on Tuesday, he said that some leaders of the opposition party and external forces were behind the latest planned protest.
According to him, “PDP has found out that the meeting where the planned protest was hatched was held at a former Senator’s house which was attended by two former members of the House of Representatives and some political office holders under the past APC government.”
PDP maintained that the statement made by the former Senator representing Ekiti Central Senatorial District, Babafemi Ojudu, on the non inclusion of the state in the Federal Government’s free school feeding programme was a prelude to the planned protest to arouse the sympathy of the public before it was clarified that many state were not ready to participate in the programme even including the APC -controlled states.
The party explained further that a large sum of money was budgeted for the protest at the meeting which was placed at the feet of the Minister of Solid Minerals Resources and former governor of the state, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, while other leaders were to recruit hoodlums from Lagos and Kogi states for the protest.
PDP also said that all attempts by the APC leadership to enlist the support of the labour leaders had, however, proved abortive as both the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress(TUC) declined their request.
“As a party, we condemn in totality this latest planned protest by the APC and this has shown clearly that the opposition party is not sincere with the people of Ekiti state except when they want to dupe the state”.
