PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has warned Nigeria's 36 state governors that his government will no longer tolerate a lack of accountability and fiscal recklessness from them in the course of their duties.
Yesterday, the president held a meeting with the governors at the presidential villa in Abuja to discuss the precarious financial situation their states are facing. Over half of Nigeria's states owe their civil servants salary arrears, some of up to a year and they appear helpless to resolve the situation.
Several governors have asked the federal government to bail them out but this plea has been flatly rejected by President Buhari who said that he cannot as none of them are owed money by Abuja. Making it clear that the days of impunity are over, President Buhari equally vowed that funds stolen by government officials who abused their offices in the recent past would be recovered while systemic leakages would be plugged.
President Buhari said: “There are financial and administrative instructions in every government, parastatal and agency but all these were thrown to the dogs in the past. Honestly, our problems are great but we will do our best to surmount them.
“The next three months may be hard but billions of dollars can be recovered and we will do our best as we will try and put the system back in the right position. What happened in the Second Republic has apparently happened again and even worse but we will restore sanity to the system.”
Adding that he was at a loss as to why the governors had tolerated the atrocities allegedly committed with the excess crude account since 2011, President Buhari promised to tackle the issue decisively. According to him, the payment of national revenue into any account other than the Federation Account was a gross abuse of the constitution.
According to President Buhari, what he had heard going on in many agencies and corporations, particularly the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation was clearly illegal. On the refund of monies spent on federal projects by state governments, the president assured the governors that the federal government would pay but insisted that due process must be followed.
Among other things, President Buhari promised special assistance for the three northeastern states badly affected by the Boko Haram insurgency. He also disclosed that a comprehensive statement on the economic and financial situation inherited by his administration would be made known to the nation within the next four weeks.
On an immediate lifeline for states that owe salaries running into many months, a committee headed by vice president Yemi Osinbajo would look at the ECA and see what could be shared immediately. Led by the chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State, the governors had presented a wish list to the president.
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