Organised labour under the aegis of Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) has condemned alleged plan by the Federal Government to sack 3,500 public workers under the guise that their appointments were irregular and unauthorised.
The Secretary-General of ASCSN, Alade Bashir Lawal, yesterday expressed shock that the Federal Government is planning to send 3,500 employees to the over-saturated labour market at a period when millions of Nigerians are dying of starvation, some committing suicide because of harsh economic condition imposed on them by unfavourable government policies.
“The greatest tragedy of this insensitive planned retrenchment is that the association has already taken the Federal Government to court on this matter and the least we expect in a normal democratic society is for the government to allow the court process to be pursued to its logical conclusion and in the interim maintain status quo ante on the matter.
“It must be emphasized that if citizens begin to disrespect the judicial process and resort to self-help as this government has been doing, sooner or later, the entire society will be engulfed in anarchy,” he stated.
According to him, when the association learnt that the Federal Government had concluded plans to sack about 6,000 workers because it was alleged that they were recruited illegally by the last administration, ASCSN filed a suit at the National Industrial Court (NIC) to prevent the move.
He added that the case against the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, which was heard on February 1, 2017, had been adjourned to February 27.
“Since Nigeria is practicing democracy based on the rule of law, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation should, pending the outcome of the court process, stop further action on the impending mass sack of 6,000 workers, which the government is now telling the public that it is 3,500 it wants to disengage in order to douse tension,” the union emphasised.
The ASCSN posited that even if the workers were recruited from certain part of the country, what the government should do was to employ people from the other parts so as to balance the deficit instead of throwing 6,000 helpless workers into the job market.
Source: Today.ng
