Labour unions call on governors who cannot pay new minimum wage to resign from office

LABOUR Unions have warned Nigerian governors who are unable to meet their civic obligations and pay workers the new minimum wage to do the honourable thing and resign from office.

Over recent months, Nigeria's National Minimum Wage Committee has been working on negotiations regarding a new rate to reflect current economic realities. Nigeria's current minimum wage of N30,000 ($21) is wholly inadequate, especially in the face of the hyper-inflation tearing the country apart, with labour unions asking for an increment that will guarantee workers are paid a living wage.

Late last week, the governors of Nigeria's 36 states under the aegis of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), rejected a proposed N60,000 minimum wage by the federal government for Nigerian workers. NGF spokesman Halimah Salihu Ahmed, said that the governors believed that the proposed minimum wage is too high and not sustainable.

According to the NGF, if the N60,000 minimum wage is adopted, many states would allocate their entire Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) funds to salaries, leaving no resources for development projects. Ms Ahmed added that although the governors were sympathetic to the plight of workers, they simply could not afford what was being asked for.

Ms Ahmed added: "The NGF cautions parties in this important discussion to look beyond just signing a document for the sake of it, as any agreement to be signed should be sustainable and realistic. All things considered, the NGF holds that the N60,000 minimum wage proposal is not sustainable and cannot fly.

"It will simply mean that many states will spend all their FAAC allocations on just paying salaries with nothing left for development purposes. In fact, a few states will end up borrowing to pay workers every month.

Responding to the development, organised labour has accused the state governors of acting in bad faith towards the ongoing new minimum wage negotiations. According to the labour leaders, every part of the new minimum wage agreement should be implemented and any of the state governors who cannot pay it should resign.

Trade Union Congress (TUC) deputy national president Tommy Etim, said: "Every segment of it should be implemented. For the governors, we have said it very clearly, if you cannot pay the minimum wage, please resign because you were voted for governance not for 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. In this same country, the governors said that N30,000 was too much for governors to pay but it is in the same country that a governor emerged with over N80bn."

Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) spokesman, Benson Upah, added: “We do believe the governors have acted in bad faith. It is unheard of for such a statement to be issued to the world in the middle of an on-going negotiation, it is certainly in bad taste.

“As for the veracity of their claim, nothing can be further from the truth as FAAC allocations have since moved from N700bn to N1.2tn, making the governments extremely rich at the expense of the people. All that the governors need to do to be able to pay a reasonable national minimum wage (not even the N60,000) is cut on the high cost of governance, minimise corruption as well as prioritise the welfare of workers.”