Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, have said that Governors were being insincere with N22,500 being proposed as the new minimum wage for workers.
The unions said this in separate interviews with NAN on Wednesday in Abuja.
They described the N22,500 being proposed by the governors as ‘laughable.’
NAN reports that the Nigeria Governors’ Forum had issued a communique after its meeting, claiming that governors could only pay N22,500 as the new national minimum wage.
According to Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, ASUU President, it was a laughable proposal “because when you look at it vis-a-vis when N18,000 was the minimum wage, what has been the value?”
“What has been the devaluation of Naira since then; what has also been the rate of inflation since then, what is the general assessment of the situation and the plight of the workers?
“It is laughable because the governors are not sincere and they are not sincere in the sense that they are claiming workers only represent five per cent of the population.
“But is there any worker in Nigeria who does not have at least two dependents or as many as five and even ten dependents.
“So, if the government increases the income of workers it will translate to improved quality of lives for the Nigerian workers.
“So, if they are saying because Nigerian workers represents five per cent and do not deserved a living wage then they are the most insincere persons on earth,” he said.
Ogunyemi called on the political class to look inward and compare their own income with that of the Nigerian workers
He, however, called on the political class to analysis what was appropriate to pay the ordinary work forces, saying that we must put the issues into proper perspectives.
“In some countries they do not do this usual negotiation, like in Nigeria which comes up on the average of ten years.
“In other places they put the living wage along the line of the rate of inflation in which case it is like automatic.
“That is if the rate of inflation in Nigeria is ten per cent, then you should know that for that year there must be ten per cent increase.
“If we do that on a yearly basis in five years the living wage of some workers will be double,” he said.
The ASUU added that that the organised labour did not just come up with that figure; they took the average from Africa and west Africa.
“They also came to the conclusion that in West Africa, Nigeria is the least paid and if you translate it into dollar, even the N30, 000 is not up to one hundred dollar,’’ he added.
Also, the President of SSANU, Samson Ugwuoke, told NAN that the N22, 500 proposed by the Nigerian Governors Forum as minimum wage for workers was unfair.
He said that the workers are also human being, how can N22, 500 sustain any worker or even with two or four defendants in a month.
“Are they saying that a worker should spend less than N1, 000 per day for food, transportation and even school fees, this is not right.
“I want to say, we join the organised labour to insist on N30, 000 as the new national minimum wage for workers,” he said.
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