The organised labour has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to investigate the management of bailout funds released to states for payment of salary arrears.

Speaking during a sympathy visit to striking Kogi State workers at the Nigeria Labour Congress NLC secretariat in Lokoja yesterday, factional President of NLC, Comrade Ayuba Wabba said Buhari should extend his anti corruption probe to states where bail out funds have reportedly been mismanaged or diverted by government officials.

Wabba was speaking against the backdrop of allegations by Kogi labour leaders that funds might have been misused especially as workers were not involved in the disbursement as stipulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s, (CBN) guidelines.

In Wabba’s words, “I want to use this medium to call on the President and Commander in Chief of Armed Forces to investigate the issue of bail out funds management. This is an administration that believes in the rule of law. We are also fighting corruption and therefore the president must show the will and courage to ensure that no arm of government under its watch is allowed to show corrupt tendencies.”

He also referred to a report by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), which stated that many states have misappropriated the bail out funds thereby sabotaging the purpose for giving the loans to them.

“We call on the Federal Government to urgently institute a very high powered committee to investigate the utilization of these bail outs because the bailout is a loan,” Wabba insisted.

He assured the striking Kogi workers that “this is a struggle we are committed to, even if it means bringing the entire working force in the country here, we would do that.”

He revealed labour’s plan to write the Governor and the President on workers’ plan to occupy Kogi until the demands of workers are met.

Efforts to get the reaction of the Special Adviser to Governor Yahaya Bello did not yield any positive results, as calls to his phone were not picked.