Leading opposition party in the country, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has accused Nigeria’s Labour leaders of hypocrisy for calling for the sack of Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.
Sanusi had earlier said during a presentation at the Annual Capital Market Retreat in Warri, the Delta State capital on Tuesday, that the Federal Government should disengage half of its work force.
The CBN boss said the aim was to revitalize and maintain a sustainable economy. He also called for scrapping of the Local Government system.
In a separate reaction, Presidents of the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria , Abdulwaheed Omar and Peter Esele, said Sanusi lacked the capacity to call for the action.
While the NLC called for his sack, TUC advised the Governor to go to the National Assembly and challenge legislators’ spending.
But the CPC in a contrary statement by its spokesperson, Rotimi Fashakin, said the labour leaders were being opportunistic and hypocritical.
Part of the statement reads: “Whilst we do not agree that the cause of the exorbitant recurrent expenditure is wholly due to the size of the public service work-force and that the sacking of half its size is the solution to the identified problem, we believe the call for the sacking of the forthright Public officer for volunteering his personal opinion is equally preposterous. It is our belief that the fiscal indiscipline of this Jonathan-led administration has exacerbated the Nation’s malaise!
“We equally believe that rather vilifying the CBN governor for the commentary, this should throw up meaningful discourse on extricating the Nation from the financial recklessness of this PDP-led Federal Government. In the first place, the CBN governor is not in a position to implement policy for sacking the Nation’s public servants.
Continuing, Fashakin said: “At best, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi aired his personal opinion. We are at a loss at the nexus between his personal opinion and the strident call for his sack, except there are other sinister underpinings in this call.
“As a Party, we have equally taken note of the ignominious manner this present crop of Labour leadership truncated, in January 2012, the people’s popular refusal to yield to the exploitative tendencies of the Nation’s rulers. In the course of scuttling the people’s revolt, some of these Labour leaders got appointed into some dodgy committees that were not primed to achieve result.
“This is why we view this call by the Labour leaders for Sanusi’s sack as a cheap, opportunistic (albeit languid) ploy to crawl back to the people’s reckoning. We believe that responsible leadership is about selflessness and consistency. We advise the Nation’s Labour leaders to critically examine the policies of governments (Federal and State) that impinge on the well-being of the people instead of looking for scape-goat for cheap populism.”
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