APC hails Buhari for ending workers’ mystery

OKUNADE ADEKUNLE
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has hailed President Muhammadu Buhari for coming to the aid of the long-suffering Nigerian workers with a multi-billion-naira package.

The party aid the aid  will not only ensure that all arrears of salaries owed by many states across the country are immediately paid, but will also make it easier for the states to meet their monthly salary obligations henceforth.

In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the APC said it was particularly delighted that the President has shown that he is truly the father of the nation by eschewing partisanship in approving the intervention fund for all the states, irrespective of which parties they belong to.

“We say this because when states were financially handicapped during the tenure of the last federal government, opposition states were hung out to dry why states belonging to the then ruling PDP got generous bailouts,” it said.

APC said by his action, President Buhari has practicalized his deep understanding of the essence of governance which, more than anything else, is the about the well being of the citizenry.

The party said worthy of note and commendation is the fact that the special intervention fund approved by President Buhari was packaged without any external borrowing, despite the paucity of funds occasioned by the fall in the price of crude oil and the unprecedented profligacy of the immediate past administration that dried out the pot of national resources.

It said so early in the life of his administration, President Buhari is walking his talk by showing that with prudence, financial discipline, plugging financial leakages and a deep sense of patriotism, even the nation’s dwindling resources can still be more effectively utilized for the benefit of Nigerians, rather than be looted by thieving public officials who abuse their office.

APC described as uncharitable and a clear indication that shame has taken flight the situation in which those who created the rot that is now being cleared by President Buhari are the same ones daring to point accusing fingers at the government that inherited their rot.

“The PDP that spent the past 16 years plundering and pillaging Nigeria has boasted that the Nigerian people will soon come, cap in hand, to beg them to return to power. What delusion! What arrogance! Who presided over the looting and the mismanagement of public funds that made it impossible for the nation to absorb the shock of the falling oil prices? Who depleted the Excess Crude Account (ECA) without authorization? Who has degraded the standard of living of Nigerians?” the party queried.

APC said the multi-pronged package approved by President Buhari includes the sharing of about $2.1 billion sourced from the LNG’s payment to the Federation Account; and a CBN-packaged special intervention fund that will offer financing to the states, ranging between N250 billion to N300 billion, as a soft loan available to states to access for the purposes of paying backlog of salaries.