….Workers’ salaries were increased, no worker was retrenched
Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, Femi Adesina has said that Buhari’s government has benefited Nigerian workers a great deal.
He also noted that the government has increased workers’ salaries and no worker was retrenched under the present administration.
Adesina while speaking on Arise Tv on Tuesday regretted that even though Buhari has done so much for workers, they would always complain because it has been a constant rhetoric with the Nigerian workers since 1977.
“My first experience of the work day was in 1977, as a secondary school boy. Do you know that from 1977 till now the message that comes from labour till now has always been the same? Go down history and see what labour has said every May Day. I think that the country cannot be static.
“There will always be some redeeming angles but they will never talk about them. For example, in the late 2015 or 2016, at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, one Minister raised the issue that with the way civil service particularly was at that time, that if the government cut the number of workers at 60 percent, the civil servants will continue to function and if not function better,” Adesian said.
He added, “The President said that it lies in his power and that not one person will lose his or her job. The average civil servant won’t remember that. All he will remember is that this wasn’t done and this wasn’t done. But the fact that retrenchment didn’t happen despite all the contrary winds that this administration had to contend with.
“This administration has done a lot. It increased salaries even at a time when it could barely afford it. In terms of the salary situation in the country, what the government was carrying, they could barely carry. There were states that couldn’t pay what was ground when this administration came, a minimum of 27 states were owing salaries. It was the President who helped them to pay these salaries.
“It is typical of Nigerians and typical of labour. Go and check labour messages since 1977 when we began to observe it in this country, the rhetoric has been the same.
Commenting on job creation in the agricultural sector, he said, “It is on record that when this administration cane in 2015 there were about five million farmers of rice in the country and when the anchor borrowers programme came on board, the original target was rice farming and within one or two years rice farmers had risen to 12 million. So, from five million to 12 million, you can calculate the number of jobs that have been created.
On the controversy surrounding loan payment by anchor borrowers he said, “In terms of the payment of loans it is the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which came about four or six weeks ago to give a percentage about repayment and that put a lie to the figure that was out there about repayment because skeptics began to circulate some false figures about repayment and the CBN came out and gave the figure,” Adesina said.
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