Minimum wage: NLC reacts to outcome of Buhari’s meeting governors

The Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, has reacted to the meeting of President Muhammadu Buhari and a delegation of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) over the N30,000 new minimum wage.

Organised labour yesterday said it is not surprised by the outcome of the meeting which reportedly ended in a stalemate.

Speaking in Abuja, NLC’s Deputy President, Comrade Peters Adeyemi, said state governors had the capacity to pay the new minimum wage but were reluctant in doing so due to alleged pursuit of selfishness and extravagance ahead of workers’ welfare.

He cautioned the governors’ forum over their refusal to pay the agreed N30,000 minimum wage, saying: “They should be talking about their willingness to pay because they are about to face the electorates again in 2019. This is not time for them to be bluffing.”

He added that organised labour unions in the country were not frightened about the governors’ position which deadlocked the meeting with President Buhari.

His words: ‘The governors have never being willing to pay anything except to themselves.

“They never like to pay money to workers but they have a way of globetrotting in chartered jets and and getting involved in extravagance.

“For us, their position is not new. But we insist that they have the resources. In fact, the fight against corruption cannot be meaningful, if workers are paid peanuts.

“Our agitation is for the government to mop up all the (looted) monies and pay them to workers to stimulate the economies of various states because many states in the country have no industries. Their local economy depends on the civil service. So, paying workers the new minimum wage is salient.

“The governors we know clearly have their own agenda which is not worker-friendly. For us, we are moving ahead without distraction.”