GOVERNORSHIP candidate of Lagos State chapter of Alliance for Democracy (AD), Chief Owolabi Salis, has urged the Federal Government to come to terms with the organised Labour over the minimum wage issue to avert the looming strike by workers across the country set to commence on Tuesday.
This was just as the AD candidate, who dismissed the reported adoption of All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Mr Olajide Sanwo-Olu, by over 40 political parties, describing the exercise as fraudulent, said that the ruling APC in the state deserved to be voted out, come 2019 because it had failed to implement a concise policy to uplift education standard, contending that it was its deliberate policy to keep the children of the masses perpetually in poverty.
Salis said this at a symposium held in Lagos by Christian Ministers Welfare Initiative (CMWI), with the theme: ‘Role of Government in Poverty Reduction in Nigeria.’
ALSO READ: Rivers : Confusion over Supreme Court ruling as APC NWC insists on Cole
According to the AD standard-bearer, the government has to come to Labour’s term for increased wages as the exchange rate of naira to the dollar is high, saying that the Nigeria economy was shaped by foreign exchange and that paying meagre salaries to workers could lead to high-level corruption in the society.
“The government has to come to their (Labour) terms because the dollar exchange is high and the Nigeria economy is shaped by foreign exchange. I think the Labour is not putting good statistics down on what they want to do. When you pay meagre salaries, you see the effect in high corruption,” Salis said.
Salis said there was nothing like an endorsement of Sanwoolu, declaring that all the parties in the state were on the same page to push out the APC in 2019.
“It was a fraud. They tried to penetrate us and you could see that was part of the financial intimidation perpetrated by APC,” he said.
According to him, Lagos electorate must prepare their minds to vote APC out of power because the ruling party in the last 20 years has really performed below expectation and is currently bereft of ideas and policies capable of driving development in the state.
“Reasons APC deserved to be changed in 2019 is because the party has failed to implement a concise policy to uplift education standard. This is deliberate to keep the children of the masses perpetually in poverty.
“If you take a walk around public schools in Lagos today, the state of those schools is not different from what they were when military disengaged from power,” the AD flagbearer stated.
While dismissing the notion that AD was dead in the state and urging the electorate to vote for the party in 2019, Salis stated that his programme, if elected into office, was for both the rich and the poor, adding that he would bridge the gap between the different classes of the society.
The AD chieftain, who insisted that the party still retained the pricing philosophy of its founding fathers that was “purely masses-oriented,” said it had analysed its only weakness in the coming elections to be vote-buying and was already working towards surmounting it.
“We have started talking to people through our advocacy effort because AD cannot pay people at the poll. It has the spirit of the people. The party is not dead, we have lifted the party,” he said.
and then