Some leaders in the civil space have reacted to the comment of the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo in an interview with The PUNCH on Sunday.
Keyamo said that some Civil Society Organisations and CSO individuals worked for the Peoples Democratic Party.
The CSO leaders have claimed that Keyamo seemed to be pointing a finger at himself and insulting his own history in order to encourage his paymasters.
They also urged him to concentrate on his dual roles as minister, and spokesperson of the Tinubu presidential campaign.
Keyamo had earlier told The PUNCH that many CSOs were deliberately antagonistic of the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), because of their political affiliations.
However, the Convener of Centre for Liberty, Dare Ariyo-Atoye, told our correspondent that “Festus Keyamo is a man that is lacking in keeping with the pace of history. Keyamo lost subterfuge and after being made the spokesperson for the Tinubu presidential campaign, he has almost turned himself to a rabble-rouser without checking his past.
Ariyo-Atoye reminded Keyamo that the CSOs, the media, and lawyers contributed to the constitution of the All Progressives Congress, which the minister belongs.
He also said, “Keyamo himself is a member of the civil society, so, what Keyamo is doing is an abuse of his own personality, abuse of his own history, and abuse of his own person.”
He added, “No party since 1999 has benefitted from the goodwill of the civil society, the media and the NGOs more than the APC. Unfortunately, they frittered away the glorious opportunity with the person of the candidate they paraded and the kind of administration they ran in the past seven years.
“So, it is important that we remind Keyamo that he should not out of desperation and out of lack of knowledge try to gaslight members of the civil society because of his penchant to serve his paymasters.”
In a similar vein, the Chief Executive of Connected Development, Hamza Lawal, has said that the minister needs to focus on solving the high rate of unemployment, and contribute to creating an enabling environment for sustainable jobs in the country.
“Fetus Keyamo needs to focus on his job as the minister and as a spokesperson, selling the candidate of their party, and leave civil society who are providing selfless and humanitarian services to the Nigerian people and trying to build trust, so that the citizens can play their own role in the Nigerian democracy.”
