Strident efforts by the Federal Government to stave off nationwide strike by the organised labour, appears to have hit the brick wall following a startling revelation by the Nigerian Labour Congress on Monday that no fewer than ten states had offered to pay more than the N24,000 minimum wage suggested by the government.
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| Nigeria's Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chris Ngige |
The NLC had said that it would not attend any fresh negotiation with the government-led tripartite team, having negotiated and adopted N30,000 as the new minimum wage for Nigerian workers.
“We will never attend any further meeting for the purpose of negotiating or debating another national minimum wage having agreed on N30,000 last month with the federal government,” Mr. Uche Ekwe, Head of International Relations of the NLC, told Vanguard on Monday.
“We have concluded all matters related to new national minimum wage and if the politicians are unwilling to pay that basic minimum but continue to connive and work against the interest of the Nigerian workers they should hold themselves accountable for that and leave out of any meaningless meeting,” Ekwe said.
Pressed to explain, if the orgainsed labour could talk of any agreement when the government had not entered into one with them, the labour leader said that the federal and some state governors were actively working to truncate the decision already reached with labour so that they would not pay the new minimum wage.
So far, Plateau State tops list of those States to pay above what the Federal government proposes with N57,000, Abia follows with N42,000, Jigawa N32,000, Nasarawa N31, Kano N30,000, Gombe N28,000, Borno 27,000, Bauchi N25, Adamawa N23,000 , Ondo N22,000, Taraba N20,000
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