The former Director-General of the Peter Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Organisation, Doyin Okupe, said all 36 state governors should be allowed to decide their minimum wage.
Okupe said this on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday, even as he faulted the National Minimum Wage Act, which mandates all governors to pay a uniform minimum wage to workers in their states.
“We should not make laws that are all-encompassing and make it compulsory for all governors in the federation to obey them. They are sub-nationalities on their own,” Okupe said.
“For instance, if you pay a minimum wage in Lagos, why should I pay that in Sokoto? Let every governor decide for his own state, by his own people, what he can afford.”
Okupe added that President Bola Tinubu should be more concerned with issues affecting the Federal Government.
The former presidential aide also said that Tinubu should allow the states and the labour unions at the state level to agree on a new minimum wage.
The leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) had declared a national strike following their failure to reach an agreement with the Federal Government on a new minimum wage.
Organised labour had demanded a new minimum wage of N497,000 for Nigerian workers, which they reduced to N494,000. After several meetings, the Federal Government proposed the sum of N60,000.
The labour unions had also failed to reach an agreement with the government on the reversal of the recent hike in electricity tariffs, leading to a nationwide strike last Monday, which ground Nigeria’s economy to a halt.
Labour, however, decided to call off the strike last Tuesday following the Federal Government’s promise to increase the minimum wage to an amount greater than N60,000, with negotiations still ongoing.
Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, after a meeting with the members of the Tripartite Committee, which lasted for over 12 hours on Friday, said they are close to agreeing on a new national minimum wage.
As such, the tripartite committee is expected to make an announcement on the new minimum wage any time soon.
However, the 36 state governors have said that the N60,000 minimum wage proposed by the Federal Government is not sustainable and cannot see the light of day.
