ASCSN Warns Against Retrenchment Of Workers

The Association of Senior
Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) has warned against any retrenchment of workers by the in-coming administration of President elect General Muhammadu Buhari.
In a press statement obtained from the Union’s State Secretariat, Moscow Road, Port Harcourt, on Wednesday and signed by its secretary-general, Comrade Alade Bashir Lawal the union lamented that an incoming government that pledged to create employment opportunities for millions of unemployed Nigerians as one of its cardinal programmes is already being pressured and nudged to retrench workers under the guise that the civil service is over bloated.
The union said the public service itself which comprised the core civil service, the Armed Forces and the Police, Immigration, Customs, Federal Universities etc is about 970,000 representing 0.61% of the country’s total population adding that the union is surprised where the over bloated figures are coming from.
The union urged the incoming government to be wary of some Nigerians who take delight in pushing every government to embark on anti-people policies.
ASCSN stated that it was common knowledge that political officer holders in Nigeria, including lawmakers and members of the executive arm of government are the highest paid in the world, adding that most of them are receiving more wages than the President of the United States of America.
The union’s statement further stressed that if the in-coming government is desirous to make meaningful change it should do well to drastically reduce the humongous emoluments of political office holders to bring it in tandem with the salary in the public service and equally trim the innumerable number of sycophant politicians recruit as personal aides.
According to the Union, civil servants in Nigeria are the least paid in Africa, South of the Sahara with a meager monthly National Minimum Wage of N18,000 which is not being paid by many state governments in Nigeria, stressing that civil servants and their dependants moan and groan under the pain and pang of poverty.
The union warned that it would be an unmitigated tragedy if the incoming administration bows to the pressure of failed experts to throw thousands of civil servants into the over-saturated Labour market.
The union enjoined the so called “experts” to be realistic in advising the incoming government.

Philip Okparaji