Akeem Ambali, the national treasurer of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), has urged President Bola Tinubu to go ahead and recommend the new minimum wage to the national assembly after consultation with organised labour on the agreement.
Speaking in an interview published byThe Punch on Saturday, June 29, the NLC official advised Tinubu to “concentrate his energy on engaging labour with realistic data and statistics”.
Minimum wage: Labour ready for amicable resolution
Ambali insisted on a living wage, asking all stakeholders to be “sincere” about the new minimum wage negotiation.
The labour leader urged President Tinubu to genuinely intervene in the minimum wage deadlock.
His words:
“It is a tripartite committee. Two are on the same page, because they are employers, and the two cumulatively amount to one, because they are both employees. It is only the employees that are agitating because they are the ones that feel the pinch; they know where it hurts.
“Mr President should concentrate his energy on engaging Labour with realistic data and statistics, which can be obtained from the Federal Bureau of Statistics. How much does it take to feed a family in a month? We should be guided by that. Once we are able to do that and we are sincere about it, the president can then engage labour, and we will resolve this amicably.”
In the same vein, Tommy Etim, the deputy president of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), stated that Tinubu should caution Nigerian governors for suggesting that they should be allowed to determine the wages of their workers.
‘Each state should be allowed to negotiate minimum wage’
Meanwhile, a Kogi-based public commentator, Kole Shittu, told Legit.ng that the FG can decide what it can pay while the state governments determine their minimum wage.
Shittu said:
“Nigeria being a country operating federalism, the federal government workers can always have their own salary standard while other federating units and other employers have theirs after sincere deliberations and negotiations amongst all parties.”
