Sanusi: NLC call is hypocritical – CPC

By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
LAGOS—The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has dismissed the call for the sack of Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN by the Nigeria Labour Congress as self-serving.

The party said the labour leadership’s call was only aimed at winning back popular support after the same leadership betrayed the masses when it unceremoniously surrendered at the peak of the popular revolt against the hike in fuel prices at the beginning of the year.

The NLC had on Wednesday called for Sanusi’s sack upon his submission that the civil service be trimmed for the purpose of fiscal discipline.

In a statement issued by the party’s national publicity secretary, Engr. Rotimi Fashakin, the CPC, nevertheless, upbraided the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP for mismanaging the economy.

“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 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. 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 underpinnings 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.”