50% Workforce Reduction: Sacking Me Is Not The Solution But…. – Sanusi Replies Critics

Outspoken CBN Governor, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has lashed out at those calling for his head over his call for the reduction of the federal work force by 50% at the annual capital market retreat last week in Warri, Delta state.

Sanusi while speaking at the financial regulators forum debate at the 18th edition of the Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja said, “so if you sack the Governor of Central Bank, does it change anything? It is not the solution; the solution is to face this reality.” The CBN governor maintained his earlier position – the country has a bloated recurrent expenditure.
At the debate on Wednesday which had in attendance the Director General, Securities and Exchange Commission, Ms Arunmah Oteh; Director General, National Pension Commission, Mr. Muhammad Ahmad; and Managing Director, Financial Derivatives Company Limited, Mr. Bismarck Rewane, among others, Sanusi further analyzed the imperatives for his earlier stance.
He said, “People say everything is about politics and let us go to the politics of it. For those of you who were in Warri, this is a country where we have 774 local government councils. In each council you have a chairman and a vice-chairman and maybe 10 councillors and some other aides.
“Take a state like Kano which used to be one state. But now it is Kano and Jigawa. When it was one state where you had one governor and maybe nine or 10 commissioners, I went to King’s College and Ahmadu Bello University on Kano State government scholarship. My parents didn’t pay, I was in King’s College and the state government even paid for my rail ticket from Lagos to Kano and back and I wasn’t the only one.
“Now what do you have? That one state has become two states, two governors, two deputy governors, 40 commissioners, maybe 80 legislators and only God knows how many special advisers and assistants they have.
“This is not about NLC or Trade Union Congress or the President or the National Assembly, but it is about us as a country deciding whether this constitution that we have chosen makes sense.”
Sanusi also put some of the blame on the Nigerian constitution which made it compulsory for each state to have a minister represented in the Federal Cabinet.
“The constitution says that there must be a minister from every state of the federation. Let me ask you, as intelligent and as educated human beings, what is the connection between the number of states and the number of ministries at the federal level.
“We are talking about federal character, so if you have 50 states today, must we have 50 ministries, if we have a 100 states must we have 100 ministries?
“I want to understand so if we create a state for the South-East since they say they want one more state, and then you must have one more minister and create a ministry even if we don’t need it. So because you have created one more state, the Federal Government must have a minister from that state.”
 InformationNigeria.org