Buhari in ‘bailout’ meeting with governors

With a view to breaking the ice over the “salary crisis” in most of the states, President Muhammadu Buhari‎ will on Tuesday meet with the 36 state governors, Femi Adesina, presidential spokesman, has confirmed through his Twitter handle.

“Decisive parley. President Buhari meets governors of the 36 states this morning from 10 a.m. Bailout? We wait,” he tweeted.

Last Wednesday, after a meeting of all the governors in Abuja, Abdulaziz Yari,‎ Zamfara state governor and chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, dismissed the call by some of his colleagues for a bail-out from the federal government, noting that the financial crisis was a national issue.

‎”As we suffer in the states, we observed that the federal government is suffering the same thing,” he said.

“For a bail-out, the government need to have liquidity some where. We cannot just ask the government for a bail-out. This sending a very wrong signal that states are in bad shape, but we all know that the economy of the country is in bad shape.

“What we suggest ‎is that many us (states) are undertaking projects for the federal government; instead of looking for that, let us look for the federal government to settle the backlog for us so that we can move forward. Nearly all the states are undertaking federal government projects that are not yet settled. If we can get that done, then most of the issues will be settled.”

‎A day before the meeting of all the governors, Rochas Okorocha, Imo state governor and chairman of the APC Governors’ Forum, had called on the federal government to bail the states out, so that they could pay the salaries of their workers.