IN response to their position on the ongoing negotiation over a new minimum wage, the organised has told Nigerian governors to resign if they feel a new minimum wage is too big for them to pay.
The deputy national president of the Trade Union Congress, Tommy Etim, stated this on Saturday, June 8, while speaking with Punch newspaper.
Etim 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 for only infrastructure.”
The governors under the aegis of the Nigeria Governors Forum had rejected the proposed N60,000 minimum wage for Nigerian workers.
They criticised the proposed minimum wage as being unsustainable and excessively high in a statement released on Friday, June 7 by the NGF’s director of media and public affairs, Halimah Ahmed.
The governors stated that many states would no longer have money for development projects if the N60,000 minimum wage was implemented since all of the money from the federal account allocation committee would go toward paying salaries.
Responding, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) criticised the governors, stating that all provisions of the new minimum wage agreement should be implemented and that state governors who could not do so must step down.
“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 ongoing 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 N700 billion to N1.2 trillion, making the governments extremely rich at the expense of the people.” the NLC said in a statement.
The statement added that the governors only needed to reduce the high cost of governance, minimise corruption, and prioritise worker welfare to pay a realistic national minimum wage.
Fatimah Quadri is a Journalist and a Fact-checker at The ICIR. She has written news articles, fact-checks, explainers, and media literacy in an effort to combat information disorder.
She can be reached at sunmibola_q on X or fquadri@icirnigeria.org