Governors’ greed responsible for unpaid salaries – NLC

The Nigeria Labour Congress has advised state governors in Nigeria to emulate President Muhammadu Buhari by cutting down wasteful spending to save money to pay their workers.



The union accused the governors of living opulent lifestyles, extravagant spending, greed, and embarking on grandiose projects and white elephants as well as appointing too many aides which had drained states purses.

NLC’s Deputy President, Peters Adeyemi, stated these on Thursday in Ado Ekiti after he led a delegation from the National Secretariat to hold talks with labour unions in Ekiti State on the salary and pension arrears owed workers and retirees, respectively.

Adeyemi said Buhari had led by examples by offering to sell some aircraft in the Presidential Fleet.

“Buhari has started it with the plan to sell off some presidential jets; we have seen some world leaders traveling on commercial airlines and this is a lesson to our leaders to live within the available resources.

“Our leaders are too wasteful, our leaders are too ostentatious and they are very greedy and they don’t even care that the nation is going through a period of economic recession. I don’t know why our leaders cannot fly commercial planes rather than cruising on presidential jets.

“I also want to ask, why do our political leaders need large retinue of political aides and political hangers-on? They need to cut down on these bloated aides and make use of professionals on the ministries like permanent secretaries and directors to save costs.”