RE: "SOKOYÒKÒTÒ": A SATIRICALLY AND SARCASTIC REMARK OF A TACTLESS STRATEGY ASSISTANT By: Leye Igbabo

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RE: “SOKOYÒKÒTÒ”: A SATIRICALLY AND SARCASTIC REMARK OF A TACTLESS STRATEGY ASSISTANT By: Leye Igbabo

Allen Sowore, an SSA to the Governor on Strategic Communication has yet again displayed the usual disdain that APC-led administration of Governor Ayedatiwa has for the good people of Ondo State, in his satirical description of the yet-to-be-effected N73000 minimum wage for the Ondo State civil servants, as “sokoyokoto” which is the euphemism for “adagbamadanu”

What I have come to notice from APC-led governments is their deliberate degradation of the citizens through dehumanizing policies and programs so that by the time they relax their stranglehold on the people, they would have no choice than to sing-praise the government for what would be seen as a respite or relief brought to them. This was exactly the strategy adopted by the Egyptian task masters over the children of Israel. After they must have belabored the children of Israel so cruelly and crudely, they would later serve them with fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks and other delicacies to assuage their pains before they put them to another round of tedious jobs.

This crude strategy worked so much that the children of Israel challenged Moses, their savior for his efforts aimed at extricating them from the shackles of oppression and ignorantly, querying him why he had to take them away from where they were being served with the delicacies!

Before the coming of APC into governance in 2015, price of premium motor spirit PMS popularly known as petrol was about N86. And it graduated to about N200 under President Buhari before the present administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came into power. Today, the petrol price has continued to skyrocket without any hope of immediate reduction. Presently, it stands between N1000 and N1300 depending on the location. If, in the usual deceit of the APC, the prices are reduced to say, N500, people will roll out drums in admiration of a party that took the pump price from N86 to N1300 as if it had done what no party had ever done before!

Truly, the APC knows how to assault and insult the sensibilities of Nigerians and yet the people will rise in defence of the party which originally brought avoidable pains and discomfort to their lives. That was what Allen Sowore has just exhibited.

Initially, the Nigeria Labour Congress demanded about a million naira minimum wage in order to cushion the effects of a tactless subsidy removal policy of the APC administration. The APC led administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu railroaded the labour union into accepting a paltry sum of N70000 minimum wage with the assurance that the petrol price would no longer be increased from the N565/litre as at the time of negotiations. Today the petrol price has changed so many times and without any assurance that it will not be jerked up again and again.

The implication of the incessant increase in the petroleum products is that the N70000 minimum wage has no strong purchasing power again, in that it can only buy very little things judging from the prevailing market prices of goods and services.

How then would Allen Sowore deride and disdain the civil servants by saying that they would carry N73000 with a wheelbarrow? What an insult!

How does Allen Sowore expect a civil servant who resides in Oke Iya in Ijoka or Abese-Amese to prepare “sokoyokoto” after all, or a substantial portion of the so-called minimum wage must have been spent on daily transportation to and fro their various govt offices? Those with their personal vehicles have since abandoned the use of the cars, yet they cannot cope with the surging price of public transportation on daily basis.

How does Allen Sowore expect a civil servant with a family of five ( father, mother and three children) to get sokoyokoto from a ridiculous minimum wage that cannot buy a bag of rice in the market? If it buys rice , what about other foodstuffs and the soup to eat them?

How does Allen Sowore and his committee of jesters expect a civil servant to cope with the ever increasing cost of educating his children and yet has the financial freedom to do sokoyokoto?

How does Allen Sowore and his class of deceivers expect a civil servant to have the luxury of preparing sokoyokoto when he is being harassed and embarrassed by his landlord over accumulation of unpaid rent arrears even when the government does not have any littlest plan to provide affordable housing for the workers?

How does a civil servant has the opportunity of preparing sokoyokoto when his health is deteriorating by the day and no functional health facilities to bail him out and the private health facilities are becoming out of the reach of the common man where the civil servant belongs?

And Allen Sowore out of sheer sycophancy and overzealousness, to justify the huge amount of taxpayers’ money that are being used to offset his own financial obligations, would come out publicly without caution, to assault the sensibilities of grown up adults who have been dehumanized, traumatized and pauperized by the ill-conceived and ill-executed government policies and programs and who are only trying to manage themselves until November 16 2024 when they will have ample chance to remove the uneventful and uninspiring administration of the accidental governor.

Lamentably, Allen Sowore has deliberately refused to acknowledge the status of Ondo State as an oil producing state which receives humongous amount of money from the federation accounts. One would have expected the Senior Special Assistant on Strategy to counsel his clueless leader to strategize on how to double the minimum wage to reflect the oil producing status of the State. The resources coming into the State since the removal of oil subsidy is huge enough to cover the salary increments and still has enough to attend to other infrastructural developments, if governance is anchored on selfless service, but inordinate pursuit of personal aggrandizement will never allow Allen Sowore and his unlucky boss to tend towards such patriotic angle.

Sincerely speaking, November 16 2024 will surely mark the end of this derision and unwarranted insult subtly passed on the civil servants, who are the chickens that lay the golden eggs.

Until then, ire o, Sowore and continue to enjoy the spoils of war in your kitties.