Jonathan's aide condemns governors waiting on 'oil money' to pay salaries

The Special Assistant to the President Goodluck Jonathan on New Media, Reno Omokri, has berated several Governors, especially of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who have blamed non-payment of workers’ salaries in their states on the Federal Government.

The Governors include, Rauf Aregbesola of Osun state, Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State, Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun state among others.

In a series of Tweet, Omokri slammed the governors for being lazily dependent on the government to pay salaries.

He said being a governor involves more than waiting on federal allocation, noting that the governors should be innovative enough to generate independent income for their states, instead of waiting for the month to end to ‘share oil money.’

He said, "Declining allocation from the FG shouldn't be a reason Govs can't pay salary. Justify the existence of your state by being self sufficient!

“The bitter truth is if we don’t restructure Nigeria in the face of falling oil prices more than 50% of states will be unable to pay salaries.”

Civil servants, in mostly APC states cry out in the media and stage protests, demanding and urging their state governors to pay their salaries – some are owed two, three months’ salaries.

Osun State is however worse as workers are owed up to six months’ salaries. Earlier in the week Doctors in the state threatened Aregbesola to pay their salaries or risk a regrettable action from the National Medical Association (NMA).

The Governors have said they are not able to pay salaries because of the decline in the federal government allocations, also claiming the People's Democratic Party administration is deliberately victimising the APC governed states.