Govs forum’s view alien to tripartite Committee decision, labour movement—NLC
The leadership of Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), yesterday voided to the decision of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) who proposed N22,500 as minimum wage, saying the existence of the forum is strange both on issues of deciding new national minimum wage and assuming a controlling voice in related labour issues as the body is not part of the standing minimum tripartite committee.
The chairman of the NGF, Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State, had at the end of their meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, announced that the forum agreed the amount based on the average ability of all states to pay, but the president of NLC, Ayuba Wabba reacted same day, stressing that the decision of the Tripartite Committee remains sacrosanct.
The Committee had on a resounding voice vote, agreed N30,000 as new minimum wage and had advised the committee to transmit the decision to President Muhammadu Buhari who ab-initio set up the Committee to advise him on the matter without the input of the NGF.
According to him, what is needful now is for the Tripartite Committee to send the decision so reached Mr. President for him to transmit same to the National Assembly for necessary legislative action so that the planned nationwide Industrial action on November 6, will be avoided.
It would be recalled that the organized Labour had yesterday carried out well complied nationwide sensitization ahead of the planed resumption of indefinite strike action if the federal government failed to agree to the terms of the Committee.
Currently, the stand of the trio on minimum wage shows that whereas organized labour sticks to N30,000, the federal government is yet to shift from its N24,000 before the NGF announced N22,500.
Industry analysts are not upbeat that a generally agreed figure is feasible between today, the end of the month and November 6, the day for the resumption of nationwide strike action.
