NLC Tackles Okupe for Calling for Reduction of Civil Servants

Paul Obi in Abuja

The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) on Tuesday took a swipe at former Senior Special Assistant to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr Doyin Okupe, for urging state governors to lay off civil servants as a palliative against the current economic crunch.

NLC President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, accused the former presidential aide of flying a kite that is filled with lies and half-truths, aimed at hoodwinking the governors across the states.

He 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.

“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.”

He added, “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.

“In his view therefore it was “an obvious socio-economic absurdity and incongruity, where 10% of the population was consuming 90% of the wealth of the state”.

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