•Says, I was denied fair hearing
Chairman of Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Ekiti State, Mr. Kolawole Olaiya, has vowed to challenge his compulsory retirement from Civil Service and demotion by the state government in Court.
Olaiya, a lawyer, in a protest letter to Governor Ayo Fayose, claimed that his right to fair hearing was flagrantly breached by an Administrative Panel of Inquiry on the ‘Involvement of Public Servants in Partisan Politics’ set up by the state government.
In the letter dated April 1 and received by the Office of the Head of Service on April 6, Olaiya revealed that he was queried over an interview he granted The Nation on September 1, 2015 on the receipt of bailout funds from the Federal Government, which was followed by a letter of strong warning before the panel passed its verdict.
According to a copy of the protest letter exclusively obtained by The Nation, Olaiya clarified that he would not plead with the state government to rescind his demotion from Principal Grade Level 12 to the post of State Counsel Grade Level 12 and subsequent compulsory retirement on the demoted rank.
His resolve, he says, was based on his unshaken faith in the Judiciary to reverse the action.
Olaiya was accused by the Fayose government of allegedly participating in a Labour-organised rally to drum support for former Governor Kayode Fayemi on Saturday, June 14, 2014 at the Oluyemi Kayode Stadium, Ado Ekiti, the state capital, in the run-up to the June 21, 2014 governorship poll.
Maintaining that such a rally was not the first of its kind, the TUC boss recalled that Labour had also held a solidarity rally for Fayose in 2003 in the heat of the certificate saga that erupted during his first stint in office.
Condemning the alleged ill treatment of civil servants in the state that are allegedly being owed backlog of salary arrears, Olaiya expressed shock that the governor, citing the lean purse of the state as responsible for this development, has however been spending several millions of state funds to sponsor “negative and inciting publications” against President Muhammadu Buhari and the federal government.