Go Pay Your Workers’ Salaries, President Buhari Advises Governors
President Muhammadu Buhari has advised state governors whose workers have not been paid their salaries for some months to, as a matter of urgency, explore ways of liquidating such unpaid salaries which, he said, had brought untold hardship to thousands of families.
He also encouraged them to restrict themselves to projects that will meet immediate needs of the people, taking account of available resources.
Buhari spoke today when he inaugurated, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the National Economic Council (NEC), which is to be led by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. The council which has the 36 state governors and the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria as members is saddled with the responsibility of advising the President on economic affairs of the country.
The President said that since the task of ensuring growth, job creation and equity, is enormous, leaders must kick-start the process by cultivating a culture of prudent management of resources at all levels of government.
This, he said, will entail looking inwards to secure sustainable ways of increasing Internally Generated Revenue and harnessing growth potentials of each state to supplement the Federation Account allocation to states.
“The states are also encouraged to embark on projects that will meet immediate needs of the people taking account of available resources.
“I therefore urge Council members to consider, as a matter of urgency, exploring efficient means of gradually liquidating all unpaid salaries of staff, which have brought untold hardship to thousands of families.
“I would like also, as a former Governor myself, to remind us the need for neighbouring states to cooperate closely on projects such as interstate and feeder roads, soil erosion, desertification and other developmental programmes.
“Our country is one and we who have the responsibility to run it must lead by example. As far as it is possible, there should be distance between politics and development programmes.”
Buhari said that on its part, the Federal Government, under his leadership, would abide by the provisions of Sections 80 and 162 of the Constitution and ensure more accountability, transparency and integrity in the distribution of the Federation Account.
He promised that all revenue generating agencies such as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation; Nigeria Customs Services; Federal Inland Revenue Services; Nigeria Ports Authority; Central Bank of Nigeria; Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency and Liquefied Natural Gas shall comply with stipulated financial regulations and administrative instructions in their remittances into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
On insurgency, in parts of the country, the President said the Nigerian Armed Forces have shown renewed commitment and made steady progress in the fight against Boko Haram.
He added that Nigeria, under the auspices of the Lake Chad Basin Commission and the Republic of Benin, is collaborating with the Republics of Niger, Chad, Cameroun and Benin to consolidate cross-border and international efforts at eradicating the insurgency. [myad]
Stuck In The Mud, By Dan Agbese
I welcomed APC as the cure for our political headache. Now it has become our political headache. When I look up, I see my hands up in the air in despair. It does not feel good.
The party appears to be offering itself as an offensive disappointment to the millions of its supporters who believe in it and its leadership. It has so far proved inept in handling the leadership crises in the national assembly. It caused the crises in the first place. We are all victims of the ineptitude. An anxious nation is on tenterhooks. If a party cannot enforce discipline among its members, it cannot build cohesiveness and offer a united front in tackling the problems the people and the nation face – and expect President Buhari, more than anyone else to have the courage and the commitment to tackle them.
Some of us may find what the party is doing to itself at the national assembly amusing. We gotta laugh only to cry. It threatens to cripple the progress we have made so far with sixteen years of unbroken civil rule under our belt. If you can afford to laugh at that, then your sense of fun is in a free fall.
The sight of the honourable members of the House of Representatives going at one another last week did not bother me. Italian legislators were quite good at this sort of thing. Flying chairs and flying fists were part of the legislative fun, Italiana.
The house members added comic relief to the sad saga in the national assembly. It was not the first time that they settled their argument that way. Ask Senator Dino Melaye, former member of the House of Representatives. Nigerians who are old enough would remember the pictures of honourable members of the Western House scrambling through windows for dear life in the first republic. The rule appears to be that if it takes fisticuffs to settle a legislative argument, then give the fists a chance. If it takes a few broken heads and torn clothes to make our lawmakers honourable men and women, then so be it.
The honourable members whose clothes were torn to shreds have nothing to worry about. They have a dress war chest at public expense. Yes, we feed them; we house them; we provide them with state of the art cars, we clothe them and we put oodles in their pockets. It is the way the cookie stands.
So, what exactly is happening to APC, the party in which the nation has invested its hopes in legitimate changes that would at least begin the delicate and tortuous process of rebuilding our nation? The answer begs not to be ignored. Within only one month of taking over, the green field of hope is turning into the brown colours of a dim future for the party and its millions of supporters. Everyone can see that the party is riven because no one seems to know any longer who is driving it. Its leadership is shaky now at best.
All right, Chief John Oyegun is the national chairman of the party but I wonder who listens to him. The members of the party in the national assembly treat him with contempt. Senate president, Dr Bukola Saraki, would not even condescend to read Oyegun’s letter to his colleagues in the national assembly in which the man conveyed to the senators the considered thinking of the party in the sharing of leadership positions in the senate. I wonder what name we have for this. Legislative arrogance?
Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu is the national leader of the party but like Oyegun, he is sidelined and similarly treated with contempt by the honourable members elected on the platform of the party.
Their treatment of President Buhari is not pretty either. They make the man look detached from the realities and the crises his party is going through that threaten to either cage him or cripple him or both.
The legislators are clearly questioning the right of their party to give them legitimate instructions on how it should go about its business. It would be difficult to find anything more disappointing. This is not, in my view, a dawn in legislative independence. In their macho ambition to assert their so-called independence, the APC members of the national assembly appear to forget that political parties, being the only legitimate platforms for elective offices, are the primary custodians of the democratic culture. All cultures are nurtured. What the honourable members do to their leaders today have implications and ramifications well beyond these times. It may, if not properly handled and checkmated, force the party to look into the water and see the unpleasant face of its uncertain future staring back at it. The word doom pops up. [myad]