The National Secretary of Nigeria's Labour Party,
Barr. Olukayode Ajulo on Thursday recommended
an upward review of Nigerian Workers minimum
wage, in accordance with the extant National
Minimum Wage Act signed by President Goodluck
Jonathan in 2010.
Barr. Ajulo, a constitutional lawyer who also
doubles as the Chairman of Egalitarian Mission for
Africa, said the present wages of Nigerian workers
going by inflation indices was below international
standards.
"The N18,000 minimum wage currently in place in
Nigeria is grossly inadequate to cater for any
home. What is worse is that these same workers
who toil for the nation are compelled to buy from
the same market that the politicians looting the
nation's treasury go to," Ajulo said. “Ideally,
minimum wages should be reviewed regularly in
order to maintain workers’ purchasing power,
especially in the face of skyrocketing prices on the
market. At the current exchange rate of N 166
naira to $1 dollar, no worker should earn less than
N 25,000, if the N 125 minimum wage when the
1981 minimum wage Act was enacted is anything
to go by.
He warned that if the trend of the rich getting
richer and the woes of the masses continued
unabated, Nigeria maybe facing a situation that
would be worse than the Boko Haram Insurgency.
"The worst thing that can happen to a nation is
hungry citizens. It is unfathomable how the
nation's leaders fail to see the impending danger of
perennial hunger in the land. A situation in which
states spend billions on frivolities and populist
jingoism, golden beds and the proverbial gangster’s
wedding cake is unacceptable. Those governors
who want to compete should do so on the basis of
‘my workers are better fed and more humanely
rewarded than yours’ rather than the attitude of
‘my state house is bigger than yours.’
"Revenge by the poor will be worse than a
holocaust and that is what will happen if nothing
was drastically done to reverse the present
situation" Ajulo said. He urged the Federal
Government to urgently put in place a committee
that would ensure that a review is put in place
before the end of the year.
"The Nigerian workers constitute major
stakeholders in the electioneering process. We
cannot get our democratic process right with
workers that are hungry," he said.
Ajulo, however, urged the Nigerian workers to also
rise up to the situation to demand for their rights in
the polity. He recalled that the current democracy
would not have been possible without the great
political labour strikes of the 1990s which
energized the process and reinvigorated the people
in their fight against the military dictatorship even
when some of the politicians had abandoned ship
or merely ‘siddon look.’
“The struggle was championed by the Labour
Movement, the affiliates in the oil sector and Civil
Societies and for which the rank and file as well as
the leadership paid dearly, some with their career
and lives. It is therefore unacceptable that the
condition of the Nigerian workers worsen pari
passu with economic rebasing and improving
business climate and the declaration of Nigeria’s
as largest economy in Africa. Nigeria cannot be a
symbol of justice and equality when we juxtapose
the large economy with the shrinking size of the
workers dinner table.
"The voting powers of workers must not be
underestimated. The workers can actually decide
who wins at all levels if they set out to organise
themselves," he further said
He also took a swipe at state governments that fail
to implement the existing N18, 000 minimum
wage, pointing out that the issue of minimum wage
is a minimum benchmark and that the International
Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention does not
provide for selective application or review by state
or local authorities. Rather, what is paramount is
that the state governments should do the needful
by putting in place legislations that would ensure
compliance, sanction in case of default and
adequate compensation of employees whose rights
have been breached. If even in America the home
of capitalism, a national minimum wage review
from $7.25 per hour to $10.1 per hour is being
proposed by the Obama administration, then there
is no reason why Nigeria, a fledgling democracy in
the throes of developmental challenges should not
embrace minimum standards it set.
"This is where I faulted the just concluded National
Conference for failing to come up with strong
recommendations that would put the Nigerian
worker at par with their foreign counterparts. As
signatory to the African Charter on human a
Peoples’ Rights which became a force of law by
the Act of 1990, non-compliance of the minimum
wage or whimsical and selective implementation is
unacceptable, inhuman and clearly an anti-labour
posture. It is retrogressive and reprehensible
beyond description. It is clearly amount to
abdication of responsibility.
The statement further stressed that “It is important
that political parties take a clear stance on this, so
that Nigerian workers will know exactly where their
bread is buttered and know who to vote for as
Labour Party is all set to ensure that social justice
and equal opportunity take root in Nigeria. The
move to remove minimum wage from the exclusive
legislative is not only backward, but also illegal
and irresponsible in the face of existing reality
where Nigeria is signatory to the ILO convention.
“As far as the Labour Party is concerned, attitude
to minimum wage is a non-negotiable index for the
progressiveness or not of a party.
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