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Labour insists, don’t vote for governors who can’t pay minimum wage

By Ayodele Afolabi, Ado Ekiti
18 November 2018   |   4:11 am
The National President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba, has directed workers to vote out any state governor or his successor, who is not ready to pay the N30,000 minimum wage.

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The National President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba, has directed workers to vote out any state governor or his successor, who is not ready to pay the N30,000 minimum wage.

Wabba said the position canvassed by governors that states can’t pay N30,000 is a distraction that won’t deter the workforce across the country.

Reacting to the governors’ position in Ado Ekiti on Saturday during the 75th birthday of the former Chairman of the Medical and Health Union of Nigeria (MHUN), Ekiti chapter, Johnson Ogunseeyin, Wabba described the governor’s position as an afterthought.

The NLC president stated that six governors were represented on the 
tripartite committee put together by the Federal Government to argue the
 issue and that it took the labour over a year to 
arrive at a mid-way wage of N30,000, saying it was inhuman for 
governors to say they had no capacities to pay.

“I consider the governors’ position as a trick
. There was no agitation about Labour that never experienced such. 
We consider it an afterthought. In case they didn’t know, labour started with a proposal of N66,000,
 so N30,000 was a mid-way approach to resolve the crisis. We didn’t just 
request for it, but we considered the high inflation rate and poor 
purchasing power of naira, among other variables.’

Meanwhile, Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has called on the Federal Government to address the current revenue allocation formula to enable states pay the new minimum wage.

Fayemi stated this when he received Wabba, who paid him a courtesy visit, in Ado-Ekiti on Friday.

The governor explained that the N30,000 was not a comfortable living wage for workers, saying he was convinced that governors would pay if the Federal Government could create the enabling environment for them to do so. He said for Ekiti State to pay N30,000, it would need an extra N2 billion.

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