Don’t Sell Your Vote For N70,000 Minimum Wage, Group Urges Edo Electorate

A Benin-based organisation, the Edo N’Okpa Movement, has advised Edo State voters not to fall prey to the recent minimum wage of N70,000 announced by the state government.

The group described the new salary package by Governor Godwin Obaseki as a Greek gift hurriedly announced to woo voters for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the governorship election slated for September 21, 2024.

While advising Edo workers not to sell their votes ahead of the September governorship election, the Edo N’Okpa Movement called on the youths to be circumspect as politicians are likely going to rely on them to perpetuate acts of violence during the September election.

In a statement the group issued yesterday in Benin, the state capital, which was made available to journalists in Abuja and Lagos, Edo N’Okpa Movement noted that N70,000 minimum wage announced by the state government was pure vote buying.

The group’s national convener, Mr Emovon Osaretin, who signed the statement, accused Governor Obaseki of always similarly bringing out caterpillars and bulldozers for road projects on the eve of election only to remove them after polls.

He said the new minimum wage was one of such “caterpillars and bulldozers” tactics which should not be celebrated by the state workers and the people of the state.

Osaretin questioned the N70,000 minimum wage “when the Governor Obaseki’s administration has not been able to pay the N40,000 minimum wage effectively with many workers being owed up to six months in arrears.”

“Maybe he is setting booby traps for the next governor since he knows very well that his anointed governorship candidate of the PDP, Asue Ighodalo, cannot win the election in Edo State,” he said.

The group also drew the attention of Governor Obaseki to the Benin-Ugo-Abraka Road, leading from Sakponba Road to Abraka, which has been ongoing since 2016.

“It is public knowledge that the governor usually deploys caterpillars and bulldozers to this Benin-Ugo-Abraka Road and many more across the state every time there is election, yet not up to 10 percent of the work has been completed since 2016.

“The governor has again brought another set of equipment to the same road, and they will be retrieved after the election,” it lamented.