Makinde gets off to controversial start in Oyo State by opposing new N30,000 minimum wage

GOVERNOR Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has got off to a controversial start in office by announcing that he is reluctant to pay the new national minimum wage of N30,000 ($62) a month and by appointing a man once charged with murder as his chief of staff.

Over recent months, the federal government and the trade unions have been negotiating a minimum wage and the two sides eventually agreed to increase the amount to N30,000 from N18,000 a month. After months of intense negotiations, President Buhari signed the New Minimum Wage Bill into law earlier this year after it was passed by the National Assembly.

However, in his inaugural speech after taking the oath of office yesterday, Governor Makinde said that Oyo State could not pay the N30,000 minimum wage because of its lean resources. Speaking in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, Governor Makinde also used his speech to scrap the N3,000 tuition per pupil in secondary schools and promised to donate his salary to the state’s suffering pensioners.

Also controversially, Governor Makinde appointed Chief Bisi Ilaka, the Peoples Democratic Party senatorial candidate in Oyo South as his new chief of staff.  In September 2018 during the build-up to the state 2019 elections, Chief Ilaka and one of his bodyguards, Temitayo Alamiyo, allegedly caused the death of three persons at the Oranmiyan Festival in Oyo town.

They were subsequently remanded in Agodi Prison, Ibadan by an Iyaganku Chief Magistrate’s Court sitting in Ibadan. Chief Ilaka, who graduated from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife in 1978, also bagged a Bachelor of Law Degree from the University of London and then proceeded to attend the College of Law, Lancaster Gate, London in 1990.

Governor Makinde, who admitted that the greatest challenge confronting the state was poverty, promised to tackle it with investment in agriculture. He added, however, that notwithstanding the good intention of his government, the state was not capable of paying the new N30,000 minimum wage.

 “I am taking this opportunity to solicit your support. We are going to be taking decisions that may be tough in the immediate but will have long-term benefits, so we want you to look at the big picture and want you to focus on the goal.

“For example, I have always said that Oyo State civil servants deserve to earn a whole lot more for their dedication and service to the state. Recently, the federal government announced a new salary scheme in which the lowest cadre of civil servants are expected to earn at least N30,000 per month.

“I know how access to this type of money will improve the lives of many of the families that I have had direct contact with but with the way the Oyo State account currently stands, I will be deceiving you if I say we are capable of taking on this burden. I believe in true federalism and believe the states should decide the minimum wage of their workforce based on individual realities as all states are not created equal, so it is against the principle of fairness to apply a blanket rule to govern them all.

“That being said, our plan is to make Oyo the first state to pay above the national minimum wage. We know this is possible and we have already set our plan in motion to make this possible but, this requires time and we propose staggered increments," Governor Makinde added.

In addition, he also promised to invest more in the education sector with a view to increasing enrolment in public schools and thus reducing the number of out-of-school children, which he put at 400,000 in the state. Governor Makinde added that his administration would open access to quality health delivery to the people, saying that existing health facilities would be upgraded.