APC accuses Ayo Fayose of tax imposition.

The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has accused Governor Ayodele Fayose of unleashing tax burdens on the poor, saying his policies contrasted what he promised the people. In a statement at the weekend by its Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatubosun, the party said the governor had turned the people to “babies without reason.” “What we have experienced in the hands of Governor Ayodele Fayose is turning Ekiti people to babies without reason. He believes Ekiti people have no capacity for reasoning or that they have short memories and incapable of knowing their rights or that they can easily be incapacitated to insist on their rights.

 “This we have seen in his reckless breaking of promises to the people in the last 10 months of his administration after running down his opponent’s life-lifting policies with the promise that Ekiti people’s lives would be better under his administration if voted into power.

“Fayose promised market women freedom to ply their trades anywhere they wished, saying he would not bother them with taxes or running after them with the environmental task force to chase them away from their trading points.

“But today, Fayose is not only chasing them away from their trading points, he is also destroying their wares, including pepper and tomatoes, and also imposing unbearable taxes that the traders cannot afford if they are to make any profit in their trades, while market women are also being dislodged from their stalls and heavy fees imposed on them to acquire stalls in the new market he is planning to build.

The party alleged that the governor was planning to force uniform to be supplied by the government on okada operators at a fee, while also planning to be collecting taxes from the okada operators who he promised free reign during his campaigns. “The same way he wants to be collecting tax on each cow slaughtered a day by butchers who cry out over low daily sales.

 

“Unfortunately, it is the children of these same poor people that Fayose has imposed education levies and examination fees in both primary and secondary schools on the excuse that it is those that don’t pay for their education that fail in their examinations.

“We wonder whether Yoruba people that didn’t pay for their education during Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s free education days didn’t pass their examinations or whether beneficiaries of the free education are now failures in their communities,” the statement said.