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NLC takes Okupe to the cleaners over ‘careless statement’

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NLC takes Okupe to the cleaners over ‘careless statement’

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Monday squared up with former Presidential Adviser on a Media, Dr. Doyin Okupe over calls by the latter for state governments to sack civil servants, saying he was completely mistaken.

President of the NLC, Comrade Ayuba Wabba said the inability of state governments across the country to pay staff salaries is due largely to planlessness on the part of government and had nothing to do with the over blotted workers in the civil service.

In the statement, Wabba said: “Ordinarily, we would not have responded to Doyin Okupe, former Senior Special Assistant to former President Goodluck Jonathan when he urged governors in a statement a few days ago, to retrench civil servants as a panacea to irregular payment of salaries, because we know him.”

The NLC boss, who was unsparing of Okupe said: “In his jaundiced argument, very much unlike one who is truly deserving of his certificate from a Medical School, Okupe said, “virtually all state governments in the country have over-bloated civil service.

“To underscore this point, he said between “2008 and 2009, Ogun State received N2 billion monthly from the federation account and paid out N1.8billion as staff salaries, wages and overhead costs” to civil servants not more than 50,000 in a state with a population of 5,000,000.”

Okupe, Wabba said: “Is bandying political statistics and this is neither good for his health nor the health of those with whom he seeks to ingratiate himself. We at the Nigeria Labour Congress believe in the equitable distribution of the nation’s resources.  We will not subscribe to a situation whereby 10 per cent corner 90% of the resources of the state.”

Read also: PDP Chair: Bode George labels Fayose an ingrate

“Okupe does not need a soothsayer or an economic guru to tell” him truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.  If he falls for statistics like this, he will fall for anything, like he has done all his life.

“Unlike Okupe, we do earnestly believe the states are where they are because of serial acts of corruption in the past, failure to save for a rainy day, high cost of governance (via employment of unneeded aides on criminally high salaries), unlawful and equally unacceptable severance packages for ex-governors and their deputies, cost of political expediency, failure to invest, etc.

“By the way, we would want Okupe to let us know how much his monthly gross was before President Obasanjo showed him the door.  He should also be patriotic enough to let us know what he did before his disorderly exit.

“We would want Doyin Okupe to know that at difficult economic moments like ours, reflatory measures help to stimulate the economy and not deflatory measures which he canvasses.

“Although not justiceable, the 1999 Constitution (as amended) provides that the State shall ensure that “all citizens, without discrimination on any group whatsoever, have the opportunity for securing adequate means of livelihood as well as adequate opportunity to secure suitable employment… equal pay for equal work.”

 

 

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