Osibajo, governors meet over N250bn allocations deductions

Vice-President Yemi Osibajo and rep­resentatives of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) met yesterday at the State House Abuja to dis­cuss the over N250 billion shortfall in their monthly allocations.

The Federal Government has been making deduc­tions from the states’ federal allocation as refund for the bailout funds given them to pay their workers’ salaries, among other things.

A presidency source privy to the meeting said the governors are keen on clearing the air on allega­tions that they got huge al­locations for their states but diverted the funds to private pockets or misappropriated them.

To this end, the NGF raised a three-man com­mittee comprising Gov­ernors Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom), Muhammad Abubakar (Bauchi) and Rauf Aregbesola (Osun) to meet with the Federal Government to resolve the dwindling allocation matter.

Emmanuel and Abubakar made it to the meeting yesterday while Aregbesola, said to be out of the country, was represent­ed by the Director-General of the Forum.

Speaking to State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, Emmanuel who did not give details said “it has been a very good meeting and we tackled some issues.

“Everything we do, I keep reassuring Nigerians, we want to be together in Nigeria, so whatever we dis­cussed it is in the interest of our citizens and we make sure we put our heads to­gether to solve our challeng­es as a developing nation.