Oshiomhole: “Governors must pay N18K minimum wage,” Edo state governor insists

The governor further stressed that it would be sad to maintain that workers in Nigeria should earn less than $2 per day as the minimum wage amounts to barely $100 monthly.

Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole

Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole, has insisted that his colleagues must pay the N18,000 minimum wage as it wasn’t imposed but negotiated and agreed upon.

Speaking after the first Central Working Committee (CWC) of the Nigeria Labour Congress me in Abuja on Friday, November 20, 2015, Oshiomhole argued that the minimum wage, which was signed into law by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan is nothing to write home about judging by the current economic realities.

The governor further stressed that it would be sad to maintain that workers in Nigeria should earn less than $2 per day as the minimum wage amounts to barely $100 monthly.

In his words, “I joined the NLC to protest to the National Assembly when they were going to amend the constitution to make the minimum wage a concurrent issue.”

Continuing, he said, ‘I said workers have a stake in this democracy. They are the ones who could afford to match the street and they matched the street for democracy. Democracy doesn’t have to run at the comfort or convenience of governors, ministers, and presidents. I believe that the issue in the economy hasn’t got to do with minimum wage. I have always also reminded my colleagues that the minimum wage was not imposed, it was negotiated and state governments agreed to it, the president signed it not under duress, there was no strike to compel the then president to sign it, he signed it voluntarily.

‘I believe when you look at the minimum wage as it is today at N18,000, it is less than 100 dollars. I think it is now about eighty dollars. Now, divide eighty dollars by 31 days, you will be getting about two point something dollars. Now we cannot argue that workers in Nigeria’s formal sector should not earn more than two dollars a day, I cannot subscribe to that because the art of governance is the welfare of the people,’ he explained.

Meanwhile, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) have warned that any attempt to undermine the payment of the minimum wage by the state governors will not be accepted by workers.