The Ekiti State government has cancelled the employment of over 2,000 workers employed a few weeks to the end of the administration of Ayodele Fayose as governor.
Mr Fayose had engaged about 2,000 workers in the state’s civil service after the July 14, 2018 governorship election won by Kayode Fayemi.
The Commissioner for Information, Muyiwa Olumilua, who spoke in Ado Ekiti on Thursday after the weekly State executive meeting, said the All Progressives Congress, while in opposition, had warned against illegal recruitment and had urged job seekers to shun the last minute moves made by Mr Fayose to employ people into the state’s civil service.
He said the decision to review the employment was arrived at after perusing the reports of a panel set up to review the employment into the state civil service in the last four years.
“Governor Fayemi has directed the Head of Service to collate all available vacancies in the Civil Service, with the overhead implications, to enable the State Government to prepare to recruit suitable and qualified Ekiti Citizens into the Public Service, irrespective of the party affiliations,” Mr Olumilua said.
“The officers reinstated into the Local Government Service Commission between October 16th 2014 and October 15th 2018, are to be reabsorbed by the relevant Personnel Boards, and migrated to biometric payroll with immediate effect.
“All 272 officers employed by the Governor Fayose Administration, who are still on manual payroll, shall be considered for absorption into the Civil Service but on a case-by-case basis. Absorption will be conditional on the availability of vacancies.
“The 169 officers recruited in 2014 but had their appointments terminated by the Governor Fayose Administration, shall be considered for reabsorption by the Ekiti State House of Assembly Service Commission, but on a case-by-case basis. Reabsorption will be conditional on the availability of vacancies in their previous offices of appointment.
“Officers dismissed between October 16th, 2014 and October 15th 2018 in the following Ministries should go to the Office of Establishment to ascertain their current status.
“All appointments made after the Gubernatorial Election of July 2018, an exercise found to have violated due process, are hereby cancelled and declared null and void.
“All affected persons are advised to participate in the next recruitment exercise to be announced in due course.”
Mr Fayose has reacted to the development, describing the action as the “height of wickedness and political vendetta promoted to the peak.”
In a statement on Thursday, signed by his spokesman, Lere Olayinka, Mr Fayose said his successor in office had succeeded in writing his name in the history books of Ekiti as one who inflicted pains and sorrow on the people.
“Fayemi has only demonstrated the wickedness in his heart by sacking Ekiti sons and daughters who were duly employed by the state government,” he said.
“It will be on record that the PDP government of Ayodele Fayose gave jobs to over 2,000 unemployed youths in Ekiti while the APC government of Kayode Fayemi sacked them.”
