Former NUPENG president warns governors against sack of workers

Peter Akpatason, chairman, House Committee on Civil Society Development Partners, on Monday, warned state governors against sack of workers under the guise of pruning down the cost of governance.

Akpatason, who gave the charge during an interactive session with legislative correspondents in Abuja, urged Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State to rescind his decision over the recent sack of 3,000 civil servants.

The former president of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) workers argued that such action would increase youth restiveness, adding that the disengagement of 3,000 workers would directly or indirectly affect about 30,000 dependants on the affected workers.

“I don’t think anybody should be talking about sacking people right now. We have too many unemployed people; he should not compound the problem. Sacking 3,000 workers is directly or indirectly sacking about 30,000 people,” Akpatason said.

While responding to questions on the calls for the removal of fuel subsidy, the lawmaker emphasised the need for President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to tackle the monumental fraud going on in the downstream sector of the oil industry, which he argued, “tends toward clinical asphyxiation of the Nigerian citizens.”

He lamented that the “past governments have not been able to muster the courage to deal with the oil fraudsters over time. The question is, should you stop subsidy because there is fraud in subsidy? Will you kill your child because he is stubborn, the right thing to do is to correct the child and if it requires flogging, you flog the child, so that he or she can do the right thing?”