Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s inconsequential advise: Sack 50% of civil servants to better the country.

In the ever looming crisis and psychological breakdown created by the overwhelming unemployment problem in Nigeria, even in the face of truth, the ever increasing labour market is not about to extenuate any time soon. Every year millions of students from secondary schools apply and seat for UME with just a handful of them admitted into the universities. At the end of each year, hundreds of thousands of these students graduate from the universities into the not-necessary but compulsory one year National Youth Service programme, with same hundreds of thousands ending up in the already saturated “labour market”.

The governor of the apex bank, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, while speaking in the second annual 2012 Capital Market Committee Retreat held in Warri, Delta State, said that more than half of civil servants must be sacked in other for the country to achieve economic growth and stability.

He argued, “we are talking about State creation in Nigeria when we are supposed to be talking about reducing the number of States in the country”. His analysis was that, “we have 36 States and the FCT, and with over seven hundred and seventy four (774) Local Government Areas. Every State have a governor, with commissioners, special advisers and so many aids. Every Local Government, has a chairman, its deputy and counsellors, then in the Federal Capital Territory, we have over one hundred Senators with aids and so many ministers. Now at the end of every month, what the State governors do is come to Abuja to collect monthly allocation to pay workers and wait for the next month to do same thing over again. At the end of four years they will not achieve any infrastructural development, human capital development or will they achieve the goals for which they were elected”.

He suggested that, “Local Governments should be scrapped off entirely and let the governors manage it, while the honourable members should be few in numbers. Each State should be asked to present 3 representatives in the National Assembly”.

Seriously, how many persons are needed to make a law or to pass it? I quite agree with Sanusi on this. He has a salient point there. The huge sum of money the country constantly waste on our lawmakers cannot be compared to any other around the world. Our Senate president, Davide Mark, earns more than the President of United State of America, Barack H. Obama.

The amount of money used by the government to service recurrent expenditures is killing the economy, with such spending, we will never grow. Mallam Sanusi said a governor called him and asked what to do, that the monthly allocation is not enough for his State to carryout any capital project. Can you imagine that? Does it mean that the governor can not think of any income generating project to add to whatever he receives from the Federal Capital? A vast majority of these governors are not thinking, they have little or no vision, they have no idea and yet, prevent every other brilliant idea from coming in.

Sanusi maintained that the solution is simple “government need to fire half of the civil servants. Any government who spend 70% of its revenue on paying its workers and the other 30% on the remaining one hundred and sixty something million Nigerians have a problem”.

Is quite easy to say, especially coming from Mallam Sanusi, who threatened the country with the introduction of N5000 note and cashless societal policy. Left alone for the governor there will be no place for the poor in this country. Where industries are shutting down operation, as a result Nigerians are going out of jobs, banks are continually relieving staff of there jobs and the high interest rate on loans coming from banking sector under his watch, making the environment less interesting for businesses to spring up and grow.

What will happen to those “half” of civil servants if his advice is to be considered? Which other firm is ready to absolve them immediately with their teaming dependants? Perhaps they should join the infamous labour market.

How will sacking 50% of the Civil Servants in any way better the country? In my own opinion, time has come when people (event speakers) will have to say there thoughts or speech to organizers of every event before been given the microphone to speak, for the betterment of our leaders and those they are leading.