The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, has disclosed the reason he won’t be resigning from his ministerial position.
Recall the All ruling Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, recently appointed Keyamo as the spokesperson for the Campaign Council.
However, over the weekend during an interview with The Punch, Keyamo said he won’t resign because the two roles can be combined effectively, adding that there is no law saying that he can’t combine the two roles.
The minister stated there is no conflict of interest because he is not using the ministry resources to run the campaign council.
Keyamo was reacting to calls from a civil society organization, Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), for him to resign his ministerial position.
TMG had last week through its chairman, Awwal Ibrahim Rafsanjani, asked him to resign his ministerial appointment as combining it with his new role may result in a conflict of interest.
Keyamo stated that the group is a support group for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but only pretending to be a Civil Society Group.
He said the group didn’t react when some ministers in the Goodluck Jonathan government were part of the campaign councils of the opposition party when they were in power.
He wrote: “Without meaning to demean these civil society organisations, I have noticed some disturbing trends from 2015 till date. It heightened in 2019 when we discovered that many of them worked for the opposition party, disguised as CSOs. We even identified some individuals amongst them who had contested offices before under the Peoples Democratic Party.
I believe that is a call made by the opposition disguised as CSOs. We didn’t hear any noise when some ministers in the past were part of the campaign councils of the opposition party when they were in power.
“Kabiru Turaki was the Minister of Special Duties at that time but served as the Deputy Director North of the Jonathan Campaign team, among others. I am a member of the All Progressives Congress. The party also takes part of my salary to pay my dues. It is deducted from the source. So I’m entitled to take part in party activities. It could be likened to extracurricular activities.
“There is no conflict of interest because I am not using the ministry resources to run this. Also, Section 84 (12) (of the Electoral Act says public officers should resign when they want to participate in political activities, which include running for office, among others, but the section does not include party activities like this, and my kind of duties are not affected.”
