The deputy national president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Peters Adeyimi has stated that the federal government should do what it must to approve N56,000 minimum wage for workers.
“This N56, 000 minimum wage will determine who gets elected and re-elected again. The time of reckoning is drawing nearer”, he warned.
Adeyimi said even in the present day Nigeria, N56,000 is nothing to write home about, considering how the prices of things have skyrocketed in the market.
According to him, the cost of drugs and food stuff has tripled since the last minimum wage law was passed in 2011 and the government is not moved by the development.
He said, “For us in the in the movement, if we are to make that demand right now, that clearly is not going to be labour’s demand. In Nigeria today, 56, 000 is clearly not what any Nigerian can survive on. Labour is convinced that N56, 000 minimum wage is doable.
“It is doable in the sense that when you put all the indices and parameters in place, you find out that N56, 000 cannot give a comfortable life to an average worker in a month. Let us look at what we are talking about, we are talking about a workers who has children, he has to pay school fees, healthcare and has other dependents.
“The cost of drugs and food stuff has tripled since the last minimum wage law was passed in 2011.I have said severally that you also need to put into consideration even the worth of our currency, the Naira which government policies have batardised. I have said again and again that those in government don’t want to pay good salaries so that they will have enough to steal.
“If Nigerian workers are well paid, some of these surpluses that are being looted won’t be there. You find today, with all the efforts of the current administration, under President Buhari that the anti corruption agencies have unearthed so much startling revelation of massive looting of our treasury.”
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