The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has faulted the announcement by the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) that they can only pay N22,500 as against the N30,000 being demanded by organised labour as the national minimum wage.

President of the Nigerian Labour Congress, Ayuba Wabba who briefed newsmen at a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday,  following an emergency meeting and briefing from the forum’s representatives at the Tripartite Committee, described the Governors’ Forum as a body unknown to Nigeria’s law, insisting that the governors dialogue with workers in their state over the N30,000 minimum wage as agreed by the Tripartite Committee.

“Let every state governors go back to their states, gather their workers and tell them if they are willing to pay the N30,000 minimum wage or not,” he said.

Wabba had late Tuesday said that the organised labour would not accept the figure, maintaining that the new wage is not an award but a figure that was jointly arrived at through negotiation.

Also speaking on the development, President of the United Labour Congress (ULC), Joe Ajaero, said the focus of labour’s demand as it moves into the nationwide strike on Tuesday, November 6, 2018, will now be N66, 500.

“Since the government, which is a major stakeholder in the tripartite committee has reneged on the agreement repudiating its earlier documented offer, the union, in conjunction with other labour centres, rejects the N30,000 compromise figure of the tripartite committee and now insists on our original collective demand of N66,500 as an irreducible minimum.

The only figure that we now recognise is N66,500 or nothing else,” he stressed.

Temidayo Taiwo-Sidiq

Temidayo Taiwo-Sidiq is a Journalist, Political Analyst and Satirist with major interest in Nigerian Politics, Governance and Sports.