The Delta State chapter of All Progressive Congress (APC) on Saturday berated the Governor Ifeanyi Okowa-led Delta State government over alleged poor handling of public schools across the state.
The opposition party in the state rejected the recent claim by the Okowa-led administration that it has approved payment of 50% minimum wage to primary school teachers in the state, describing it as a ploy by the state government to deceive its citizens.
The Delta State Commissioner for Primary Education, Hon Chika Ossai, on Thursday, while speaking in Asaba at a meeting with the State chapter of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) said the state government has approved payment of 50% minimum wage to primary school teachers with effect from February, 2022.
Ossai explained that the approval was given as part of Okowa’s commitment to ensuring the welfare of the primary school teachers.
The Commissioner, however, explained that the Local Governnent Councils, under the auspices of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) Delta state chapter, will have to make up for the balance of 50% of the minimum wage to the teachers, emphasizing that it was the responsibility of the Local Governnent Councils to pay primary school teachers.
But, the Delta State APC knocked the Okowa-led administration for the statements, saying the approval is “a lie from the pit of hell and just another bizarre and totally meaningless boast from an administration that has completely lost its bearings.”
The party wondered why the governor who allegedly ignored the primary school teachers for six years suddenly announced that it will pay attention to the aggrieved teacher by the payment of 50% minimum wage.
The party in a statement issued by its Director of Publicity, Dr. Wilson Odafe Omene and made available to The New Diplomat, also appealed to Deltans to stay calm and remain patient as “Okowa’s horrible mistake of an administration to come to an end.”
The statement reads, “Governor Okowa cannot fool Deltans that out of nowhere – in fact, after more than six years of befuddling indolence – he is suddenly inclined to pay attention to the plight of primary school teachers and will now embark on the implementation of the new minimum wage in the remuneration of our long abandoned and wickedly underpaid teachers. In any event, it is crystal clear that there is no genuine intent by Governor Okowa or his deceitful PDP administration to actually pay the teachers a dime of the minimum wage given that in the same breath, the Governor demanded that the already financially comatose local government councils across the state must come up with half of the money required to pay the teachers every month!
“There is just no way the local governnent councils can make up the balance of 50% of the minimum wage to the teachers as imperiously directed by the Governor and it is indeed, totally wicked for the Okowa administration to seek to saddle the moribund local government councils with the responsibility of coughing up half of the funding for primary schools in the state when the illegal pilfering of local government funds at state level is what rendered the councils incapable of meeting their already existing obligations, in the first place! It is just this same sort of avaricious approach to governance on the part of the Okowa administration which crippled the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, DESOPADEC, and has left it caput ever since our colossal mistake of a Governor came on board.
“All local government councils in Delta State have been on life support since Okowa’s cash and carry administration occupied Government House and bastardized governance in Delta State into a family affair and clannish bazaar. Indeed, the brazen hypocrisy of further burdening the already more or less bankrupt local government councils with any additional financial obligations at this time is a clear pointer to the fact that this sudden avowed concern for primary schools is an entirely dishonest gimmick on the part of the Governor.
“In any case, Delta is a state awash with cash; it consistently gets the highest monthly allocations of any state in the country and is set to keep getting even more with increases in the price of petroleum as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yet, instead of fully taking up the responsibility of educating our most vulnerable children at primary school level, our money-centric Governor is so fixated on becoming the richest Governor ever that he has already connived with our rubber-stamp House of Assembly to borrow N12 billion on our necks with rumours now circulating that another whooping loan of N40 billion is in the works!
“Clearly Delta State is in big trouble stuck with a medical doctor who only managed – in the entirety of his medical career – to practice medicine for just 3 months at Osiomo Leprosy Camp. The good people of Delta State must now square up to the existential challenge presented by a basket case of a chief executive quite determined to grind the entire state into utter ruin in his last 15 minutes as Governor, even as his monumental failure of an administration hungrily empties our state’s treasury while burying us alive beneath a Mount Everest of unwarranted debt!
“Deltans had, hitherto, been satisfied to simply wait patiently for Okowa’s horrible mistake of an administration to come to an end but with the way and manner he is mismanaging virtually each and every aspect of our public life as a state, we may not even have much of a state left when our colourless Governor finally exits into well-deserved oblivion, political irrelevance and fitting obscurity, come 2023.
“These latest shenanigans regarding our long maltreated teachers leave a sour taste in the mouth. Okowa is not concerned about the teachers of our children, has absolutely no genuine plans to employ any additional teachers and has never given a toss how our children are coping in the primary schools his administration has never made a priority even though his wife used to teach there. In any case, the very first thing of note Okowa did as soon as he became Governor in his first term was to sack all those employed by his predecessor simply because he did not want to pay salaries to Deltans and rather preferred to misapply the resources of the state in such a manner that they ended up benefitting only himself, his family, kinsmen, clansmen, cronies and friends. This is what you get from a Governor whose one and only paradigm of political reward is how much you gave him in cash during his campaign!
“Governor Okowa is not interested whether or not Deltans are employed and has never indicated interest in employing anyone. This sudden proposition to employ primary school teachers is the height of dishonesty and, given Okowa’s legendary insensitivity, incapacity for feeling, total lack of empathy, studious disdain for his fellowmen, cold aloofness towards Deltans and, notorious detachment from the plight of anyone not from his immediate locality, it is really just another scheme to give employment to any Tom, Dick and Harry from Owa-Alero under the guise of employing primary school teachers for our children across the state. Deltans are not fools and the All Progressives Congress, APC, Delta State condemns this latest scheme by Governor Okowa and the PDP to take our teachers for a ride all over again,” the statement added.
