President Muhammadu Buhari has approved over N400bn to assist States finding it difficult to pay salaries of civil servants.

The relief package include the sharing of about $2.1b (N413.7bn) in fresh allocation between the states and the federal government.

The money was sourced from recent LNG proceeds to the federation account, and its release was okayed by the President.

It was also described as a Central Bank-packaged special intervention fund that will offer financing to the states, ranging from between N250bn to N300bn.

This would be a soft loan available to states to access for the purposes of paying backlog of salaries, as well as “a debt relief program proposed by the Debt Management Office, DMO, which will help states restructure their commercial loans currently put at over N660bn, and extend the life span of such loans while reducing their debt-servicing expenditures.”

About half of Nigerian States have not paid their workers in months.

The fund is expected to be released in few days.