Prioritise Payment of Salaries with Paris Club Refund – Buhari cautions State Governors

President Muhammadu Buhari has advised State governors to channel the second tranche of the Paris Club refund to the payment of salaries, pensions and gratuities immediately they receive the disbursement.

This was contained in a statement by the president’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu at the end of Thursday’s National Economic Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja.

President Buhari address to the Governor read thus, “I will not rest until I address those issues that affect our people. One of these basic things is the issue of salaries. It is most important that workers are able to feed their families, pay rent and school fees, then other things can follow.”

The National Economic Council is made up of State Governors and chaired by the Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.

The president expressed the hope that the early release of the refunds by the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun and Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, would ease the financial hardships being experienced by the states.

President Buhari, who went round the council chambers to greet the governors one after another, praised the unity of the Forum of State Governors. He thanked them for their display of “love and respect” to him.

The president said he was overwhelmed by his recent experience in which states, irrespective of political differences charged their citizens to pray in mosques and churches for his well-being, and apologised to governors for barring them from visits to him while he rested in London.

“I didn’t want government to move to London. I wanted it to remain here and I am glad it did,” he said.

After narrating what he went through while on that vacation, President Buhari noted the suggestion by the governors for him to add more rest, but insisted that he would remain relentless in the pursuit of the interest of the Nigerian people at all times.

This, according to him, was the only way to show his gratitude to the people who, he said, “had given so much to me. I was overwhelmed by the celebration of my return all across the country.”

The chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, Abdul-Aziz Yari of Zamfara State, assured the president, on behalf of his colleagues, that they will continue to support his policies and actions which they had adjudged as being in the nation’s best interest.

The governors of Imo, Akwa-Ibom, Osun and Abia States thanked President Buhari for saving the day for states through the first tranche of the London-Paris Club refunds while calling for the immediate release of the second one.

They also commended the trust the president reposed in the Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo, whom they said did not disappoint when he acted as president.