By Victor Ahiuma-Young

LAGOS—THE Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and  Association  of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, ASCSN, yesterday expressed shock over the statement credited to Dr. Doyin Okupe, former Special Adviser to erstwhile President Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, that governors should sack thousands of their workers to cope with the dwindling revenues. NLC and ASCSN urged the governors not to listen to Okupe’s satanic verses

NLC in a statement by Ayuba Wabba, said: “At NLC, we do not believe staff salaries and allowances are reason(s) why the economy of the states are in shambles. Unlike Okupe, we earnestly believe the states are where they are because of serial acts of corruption in the past, failure to save for a rainy day, high cost of governance (via employment of unneeded aides on criminally high salaries), unlawful and equally unacceptable severance packages for former governors and their deputies, cost of political expediency, failure to invest, etc.

”By the way, we would want Okupe to let us know how much his monthly gross was before President Obasanjo showed him the door. He should also be patriotic enough to let us know what he did before his disorderly exit.

”We would want Doyin Okupe to know that at difficult economic moments like ours, reflatory measures help to stimulate the economy and not deflatory measures he is canvassing.”