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Pay ₦60,000 Minimum Wage Or Resign- Labour Tells Governors

Published

6 months ago

Jun 9, 2024.

Pay ₦60,000 Minimum Wage Or Step Down – Labour Tells Governors.
The NGF claimed the proposed wage is too high and would force states to use all federal funds for salaries.
Labour leaders stressed that governance includes worker welfare and not just infrastructure.

EKO HOT BLOG reports that Organized labour, comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC), condemned governors on Saturday for their recent stance on the new minimum wage in the country.

This online media platform recalls that the governors, under the aegis of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), rejected the proposed ₦60,000 minimum wage for Nigerian workers.

EDITOR’S PICK

The Director of Media and Public Affairs for the NGF, Halimah Ahmed, stated on Friday that the governors deemed the proposed minimum wage too high and unsustainable.

They argued that if the ₦60,000 minimum wage were adopted, many states would have to allocate their entire Federal Account Allocation Committee funds to salaries, leaving no resources for development projects.

In response on Saturday, the Organized Labour criticized the NGF’s position, insisting that every part of the new minimum wage agreement should be implemented. They asserted that any state governor who cannot pay the minimum wage should resign.

In an interview with Punch, Tommy Etim, the Deputy National President of the Trade Union Congress, said, “There is no minimum wage. Every segment of it should be implemented. For the governors, we have said it very clearly. If you cannot pay minimum wage, please resign because you were voted for governance, not only infrastructure.”

“If you build the entire infrastructure and the people are not living to use it, who will use it? When they were campaigning did they tell us that? They didn’t tell us that. They make use of the poor to get to the top and when they get there, they start thinking outside the box. All the money they spent in electioneering campaigns, if they applied that to build infrastructure, to develop the revenue generation that would have solved some socio-economic challenges in their domain.”

Labour Tells Governors

Describing the NGF statement as a recipe for industrial unrest, he said, “In this same country, the governors said that ₦30,000 was too much for governors to pay but it is in the same country that a governor emerged with over ₦80bn. What an irony! We cannot jump processes. We will also look at it together. Labour will be meeting.

“We are giving Mr President the benefit of the doubt to work the talk. The end will justify the means.”

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