FG should sack Sanusi now – NLC President

LAGOS — THE Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, yesterday, called on the Federal Government to sack the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mallam  Sanusi Lamido  Sanusi, for advising the Federal Government to sack half of its work force to maintain a sustainable economy even as the  Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, has also said Sanusi lacked the capacity to call for the action.

In a presentation at the Annual Capital Market Retreat in Warri, Delta, Tuesday, Sanusi  had advised the Federal Government to sack half of its work force, arguing thatNigeriacould not build its economy when 70 per cent of its earnings went to salaries and entitlements of civil servants.

Reacting to Sanusi’s call, yesterday, the NLC president in a statement said: “It is obvious Sanusi was never qualified for the office of CBN governor in the first instance, and he must be asked to leave the office as he has shown more than enough incompetence and contempt for the Nigerian people.”

Omar said the CBN Governor’s comment  reflected his contempt for the working people inNigeriawith his recommendation that the Federal Government should sack 50 per cent of its workforce for the economy to be revived.

*CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido

He said: “Since assumption of office as the Governor of the Central Bank ofNigeria, all Sanusi’s major pronouncements have been either directly anti people or ruinous to the Nigerian economy.

“The major problems of the Nigerian economy are corruption and lack of good governance, and until we solve these problems our economy will continue in comatose.

“Today, there are countless probe reports with names of those who swindled our country of several trillions of naira and other foreign currencies still living in Nigeria either walking freely around the corridors of power or directly holding public or political offices rather than being in jail.

“We see in Sanusi an agent of death that must be defeated and crushed before he further destroys the Nigerian economy. While President Jonathan is promising to create more jobs, Lamido Sanusi is calling for mass sack of civil servants in a country with one of the highest number of unemployed, which has indeed led to gross deprivation and  the current state of insecurity inNigeria. While we believe the Federal Government will ignore the ranting of this hollow economist, Sanusi has never demonstrated patriotism in all his advice on economic and financial management inNigeria.

“Sanusi’s only understanding of governance is simply about saving money and not saving lives as his proposals are repeatedly devoid of human content and without consideration for the implications on larger society. The burden that will come with mass sack as high as 50 per cent of civil servants in addition to the already saturated unemployment market can better be imagined. Governance is about improving the quality of lives of the people and not destruction of productive lives.”

TUC on Sanusi

TUC president, Mr Peter Esele, in his reaction stressed that a civil servant earned less than a dollar a day while about 170 per cent of the country’s budget was being spent on those in government.

Esele in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria,NAN, said the governor should rather go to the National Assembly and challenge legislators’ spending and not the civil servants.

He said: “I think that the CBN governor is being economical with the truth. He knows those who are spendingNigeria’s money.”

“I know he has been summoned by the National Assembly before because he said that 25 per cent of the overhead cost of the Federal Government budget went to the National Assembly.”

Commenting on the call for the scrapping of the 774 local governments, Esele said the councils did not function properly because the government did not give them powers to perform their statutory functions.

He said that the state governors made the councils redundant by planting those loyal to them in office.

“Why will a local government chairman be loyal to the governor and not to his constituency.

“In other parts of the world, it can’t happen except inNigeria,” he said.

Vanguard, Babajide Komolafe