Kwara: A PDP-controlled LGAs won’t pay workers’ salaries, by Abdullateef Hassan

As campaigns for the September 21 local government elections in Kwara State heat up, it is important to remind ourselves what the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) stands for as a party and why no local government in the state should be governed by a PDP chairman. And also the risk associated with a PDP-controlled local government area.

While spending my leisure time on Facebook a few days ago, I came across a post where the author said that of all the 16 LGAs participating in the forthcoming local government polls, Offa LGA is the most contentious. He added that while the odds available favour the APC in 15 LGAs, it would be hard for the party to win the Offa LGA.

Since I have known him five years ago on FB, he has never made predictions on why party A would defeat party B without telling his readers the reasons. But in this case, the PDP apologist didn’t tell them why winning Offa Local Government would be hard or impossible for the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.

The last time I checked, Offa LGA was one of the strongholds of the APC, and the number of votes it turned out for the party in the 2019 and 2023 elections was massive. Aside from this, there has been news about members of the PDP denouncing their membership. On Saturday, the PDP vice chairman in Balogun Ward, Offa LGA also turned in his resignation letter.

So, how the PDP that is being deserted almost every day like someone living with a contagious disease, will give the APC a run for its money in the forthcoming Offa Local Government elections is what I can’t wrap my head around. Even its leader, Dr Bukola Saraki, who chose to lavish Kwara’s money on his wife’s 60th birthday bash in France over funding the party, can’t say this.

That aside, no local government in today’s Kwara should allow a PDP chairman to run its affairs given the party’s anti-workers antecedent and what it stands for. Like Saraki, the chairman will be arrogant, corrupt, unfeeling and hardly pay workers’ salaries. Afflicting workers is the trademark of Kwara PDP, and it was one of the reasons Kwarans sacked them in 2019.

The recent court case between PDP and KWSIEC is another sign and indication that a local government controlled by the PDP will afflict workers and deny them their hard-earned salaries. The PDP dragged the state independent electoral commission to the court over baseless issues with the hope of preventing the September 21 LG polls from holding.

Despite the PDP and Saraki knowing that if elections are not conducted across the 16 local governments on September 21, no LGA will be paid monthly allocations which will subsequently affect the workers’ salaries, but they don’t care. They asked the court to adjourn the case so that the innocent local government workers and their families could starve.

Dear Kwarans, the September LG poll is another chance to reject Saraki and his anti-workers party. The risk associated with voting for a PDP chairman is too huge, and no local government government should take it. Such a risk is too risky and could return the workers to former Governor Abdul Fatah Ahmed’s era, where civil servants were made to starve.

Abdullateef writes from Offa.