Okupe under fire over call for mass sack of civil servants

– The Nigeria Labour Congress criticized Okupe for his call to sack civil servants to resolve the irregular salaries payment crisis

– The NLC president expressed shock that rather than call for the sanction of governors who failed to properly utilise their bail-out funds, Okupe is calling for the “blood of hapless civil servants”

– He said that staff salaries and allowances were not the reason the economy of the states were in shambles

– According to the congress, serial corruption in the states was responsible for economic hardship

Doyin Okupe, a former senior special assistant to Goodluck Jonathan, has come under fire following his call to sack civil servants to resolve the irregular salaries payment crisis.

In a swift reaction, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) criticized Okupe and described the call as “absurd”.

Premium Times reports that the NLC expressed its discontent in a statement issued by its president, Ayuba Wabba, on Tuesday, May 3.

According to the labour, Okupe’s argument that the governors should sack their workers because “virtually all state governments in the country have over-bloated civil service” is “jaundiced”.

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The former presidential spokesperson cited the example of Ogun state, which he claimed was receiving N2 billion monthly from the federation account between 2008 and 2009, and paid out about N1.8 billion as staff salaries, wages and overhead costs to civil servants. He added that the total staff strength was about 50,000 while the population was about 5,000,000.

Okupe described as “an obvious socio-economic absurdity and incongruity” the situation where 10% of the population was consuming 90% of the wealth of the state.

However, Wabba dismissed Okupe’s figures as “political statistics” and called on him to conduct a forensic audit of Ogun state’s pay to civil servants, contractors and politicians as well as the cost of running government houses.

Speaking about the NLC, Wabba noted that staff salaries and allowances were not the reason the economy of the states were in shambles. He added that serial corruption in the states was responsible for economic hardship.

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According to the congress, high cost of governance through hiring of aides on high salaries, unlawful and unacceptable severance packages for former governors and their deputies, cost of political expediency, failure to invest, were to blame.

Speaking about difficult economic moments for the country, Wabba stressed the necessity and importance of measures that would to stimulate the economy.

“It is not a favour when the state employs its citizenry. It is merely doing its duty as prescribed by the Constitution,” he noted.

The NLC president expressed shock that rather than call for the sanction of governors who failed to properly utilise their bail-out funds, Okupe is calling for the “blood of hapless civil servants”.

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