Sack Yourself First, Labour Tells Okonjo-Iweala

The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) has said that the Minister of Finance and coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala should sack herself first before talking about sacking civil servants.

Recently CBN Governor, Lamido Sanusi also called for the sack of about 50 percent of the civil servants because 70 percent of the nation's resources are consumed by them.

The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu in his reaction said that there was no plan to sack workers and added that government is doing everything to generate more jobs for the teeming youths in the country.
However, the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Nkonjo-Iweala was on Monday quoted to have said that there was no going back on the planned mass sack of civil servants.
While reacting to the statement attributed to Iweala, Chairperson of TUC in FCT, Comrade Abdul Hakeem told LEADERSHIP that, "we will mobilise our members to resist such plans because sacking workers cannot improve the economy as envisaged by agents of death".
Comrade Abdul said that it was unfortunate that government was talking about sacking workers when there was growing insecurity which was as a result of youth unemployment and poverty.
He said that such comments show a high level of insensitivity on the part government.
"The Minister should first sack herself because whenever they need money to waste, they will remember civil servants are too much. The President at the beginning of the year said he would cut down the salary of political office holders and number of personnel going on overseas trip but nothing was done in that regard.