N18,000 national minimum wage: NLC blasts Nigerian governors

THE Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has said governors have declared a war on workers by saying that it was longer sustainable to pay the N18,000 national minimum wage.

In a statement in Abuja yesterday, the NLC President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, said the declaration by the governors was an attempt to frustrate efforts by the organised labour to table a proposal for a review of the minimum wage, which was signed in 2011.

But the congress said it was prepared to fight any attempt to frustrate improved workers’ welfare.

Wabba said although the NLC wanted a higher wage of N52,000, labour was forced to accept the N18,000 minimum wage after two years of negotiation.

The NLC president argued that the ability to pay minimum wage was not the problem of the economy, but the large sums of money taken away as wages by political office holders and their aides.



Wabba said: “The governors cannot, therefore, want Nigerians to take them seriously by their present claim that the current national minimum wage was ‘imposed’ on them.

“For us in the NLC, we know as a fact that ability to pay minimum wages is not the problem of the economy. What is the problem for states and other tiers of government is the amount of many political office holders and their unproductive aides take away as wages.

“For the private sector, the creed to accumulate more and more profit is also always a motivating factor to keep wages down. Similarly, we have been in the forefront of campaigning that the cost of governance at all levels need to be drastically cut down, to free enough resources for development.

“The hundreds of billions of Naira our public office holders continue to filter away in the name of governance are what are not sustainable. For instance, the annual cost to the public purse of governors security votes, which is an unaccountable drain on the public resources, is worth several thousands of minimum wages per state.

“Secondly, Nigerians who have the means to travel by air would recall that in the last six – 10 years, majority, if not all our governors, no longer use commercial airline regular flights as a means of transportation from one place to another. They now have ‘official’ aircrafts and helicopters, which they maintain at huge costs to the state treasury.

“Their less ‘fortunate’ counterparts charter aircrafts and helicopters at millions of Naira cost to taxpayers to attend any manner of functions from marriages to child naming ceremonies.

“States are in the poor financial state they are in largely on the developmental choices they have made; largely on the basis of priorities they have chosen which has nothing to do with the public good.”

He added that as early as last May, the NLC gave notice that the N18,000 minimum wage was due for review and that workers would be submitting a new proposal once the incoming government settled down.

“With the recent devaluation of the Naira, the attendant increase in inflation and cost of living, even without the last minimum wage Act reaching the mandatory five years when it is due for review, we would have been justified to request for review.

“Now, the five years is here – we are at the end of 2015, and with the cost of living being so high, we will soon table our new minimum wage demand to the Federal Government.

“If the recent statement by the governors forum is intended to manoeuvre them away from addressing these imperatives, then it is bound to fail as we are ready to do battle to raise the living standard of the Nigerian working people,” Wabba said.