The governor further stressed that it would be sad to
maintain that workers in Nigeria should earn less than
$2 per day as the minimum wage amounts to barely
$100 monthly.
Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole, has insisted
that his colleagues must pay the N18,000 minimum
wage as it wasn’t imposed but negotiated and agreed
upon.
Speaking after the first Central Working Committee
(CWC) of the Nigeria Labour Congress me in Abuja on
Friday, November 20, 2015, Oshiomhole argued that the
minimum wage, which was signed into law by ex-
President Goodluck Jonathan is nothing to write home
about judging by the current economic realities.
The governor further stressed that it would be sad to
maintain that workers in Nigeria should earn less than
$2 per day as the minimum wage amounts to barely
$100 monthly.
In his words, “I joined the NLC to protest to the
National Assembly when they were going to amend the
constitution to make the minimum wage a concurrent
issue.”
Continuing, he said, ‘I said workers have a stake in this
democracy. They are the ones who could afford to
match the street and they matched the street for
democracy. Democracy doesn’t have to run at the
comfort or convenience of governors, ministers, and
presidents. I believe that the issue in the economy
hasn’t got to do with minimum wage. I have always
also reminded my colleagues that the minimum wage
was not imposed, it was negotiated and state
governments agreed to it, the president signed it not
under duress, there was no strike to compel the then
president to sign it, he signed it voluntarily.
‘I believe when you look at the minimum wage as it is
today at N18,000, it is less than 100 dollars. I think it
is now about eighty dollars. Now, divide eighty dollars
by 31 days, you will be getting about two point
something dollars. Now we cannot argue that workers
in Nigeria’s formal sector should not earn more than
two dollars a day, I cannot subscribe to that because
the art of governance is the welfare of the people,’ he
explained.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the
Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) have warned
that any attempt to undermine the payment of the
minimum wage by the state governors will not be
accepted by workers.
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