States salary arrears can be paid through bailout funds- APC

Deputy National Chairman (South) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Engr. Segun Oni has disclosed that although a bulk of salary arrears owed workers in some states have been paid through bailout funds provided by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration saying that the APC-led administration is working assiduously to totally eliminate salary arrears.

Oni made the disclosure when he received the United Kingdom Member of Parliament for Edmonton, Kate Osamor at the APC National Secretariat on Tuesday evening describing the visit of the UK MP of Nigerian descent as homecoming.

“We are doing something which people have not recognized as a cardinal signature of the progressives. We are trying to eradicate salary arrears. Past governments, particularly at the state levels owed salaries.

This government has been trying to help them (states) pay the arrears and very soon we are going to have a check on how much is left everywhere to be paid.

“The people who are owed salaries are mostly the downtrodden and when they are owed, you compound the poverty equation. We are working towards ensuring that in no distant future, arrears will be eliminated and the only way we can do it is through the bailout funds to states.

We cannot control what the governors would do but when there are bailout funds, we believe that they will apply it to settle salary arrears”, he said.

The APC Deputy National Chairman told the visiting UK MP that the President Buhari APC-led administration has initiated several pro-people initiatives including the home grown school feeding program and N-Power scheme to alleviate poverty and provide gainful economic opportunities for the masses adding that “government was open to ideas and best practices to develop the country, reduce poverty and productively engage its young population”.

Oni said the APC is actively working to ensure that marginalized groups, particularly women and youth are greater mainstreamed in politics. He called for greater participation of women in politics as a way to increase their representation in government and party structures.

In her earlier address, the UK MP for Edmonton, Kate Osamor narrated the challenges faced by her political party, Labor Party in the lead up to the June 8 Snap General Election in the United Kingdom.

“One of the things which the Labor Party had to do to be successful in our last snap general election was to reach out to the people who are downtrodden, the people who are working for minimum wage or on contracts when they don’t know how often they will be paid. We had to look at all the issues and put a manifesto together which spoke to them.

Because when we were into the snap general elections, as far as the commentators were saying, as far as people in our own party were saying, we were going to be in the dustbin of history, we would have to start again.

“But what the manifesto did was, open up the eyes and ears of young people, of people who had access to vote but never voted and for those people who voted for the first time. If we had not done that, we wouldn’t have got to a point where we were able to have a hung parliament”.

Osamor said that the UK’s Labor Party was ready to share its experiences, good practices and work with the APC in Nigeria, promising to extend the Party’s well-wishes to the current seven UK MPs of Nigerian descent; Chi Onwurah, Fiona Onasanya, Chuka Umunna, Helen Grant, Abimbola Afolami and Kemi Badenoch.

Present at the meeting were the APC National Youth Leader, Hon. Dasuki Ibrahim Jalo; Chief of Staff to the APC National Chairman, Mr. Edwin Ikhinmwin and Country Representative, Westminister Foundation for Democracy, Mr. Adebowale Olorunmola.

Tom Okpe, Abuja