The presidency has responded to the recent proposal by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) for a new minimum wage of N497,000 for workers, labeling it as unrealistic. Presidential aide, Bayo Onanuga, urged labour leaders to be more serious and realistic with their demands.
Onanuga emphasized the importance of considering available resources when determining the new minimum wage. He pointed out the over-bloated civil service structure at both state and federal levels as a significant factor in this discussion.
“Well, it’s very simple. I think the demand is outrageous. If you ask Mr. Ajaero or our brother who is the President of the TUC, Osifo, how much do they pay their drivers or their lowest-paid workers, how much do they pay their cleaners? Can they pay them N500,000, can they pay them N615,000? It’s unrealistic,” Onanuga told Vanguard.
He continued: “We have a bloated civil service at all levels. Government is keeping them as a social service because it doesn’t have other jobs for them. The last time someone gave the census of the federal civil servants, they are said to be about 50,000. I am not talking about the police, army, or those employed by some agencies. I am talking about the hardcore civil servants.
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“If you visit the Federal Secretariat, you will see them milling around. You do not expect much productivity from them. Yet these are people Ajaero wants the Federal Government to pay N615,000.
“At the moment, what the government is spending on recurrent expenditure is too high. I don’t foresee any government, either the federal, state, or local government council, spending all its money just to pay workers.
“There are still people who are self-employed, people who are doing their own businesses, to whom the government has a responsibility to do roads, provide healthcare, provide education, and others. So, Labour should be realistic.
“From what I have seen so far, they are unserious, unrealistic with their outlandish demand. I know that what the President has been promising is not just a minimum wage but a living wage.
List of minimum wage in African countries in Dollars
“It’s too early now to say this is what the government will agree to. But I think they are still negotiating. In the coming weeks, they will agree on a figure and then announce it to the Nigerian people.
“Then we have to be worried whether the states have the earning power to pay whatever the minimum wage agreed on because some states found it difficult to pay the old minimum wage of N30,000.
“I read a few days ago that Zamfara state government, which failed to pay the N30,000 current minimum wage, announced that they will pay. If some states have not paid the minimum wage announced by President Muhammadu Buhari five years ago, it is an indication that the states will also fail the new minimum wage. So labour needs to be realistic.
“In my own view, I think what labour should be talking about is how to make affordable housing available, how to reduce transport costs, how to make food cheap and affordable to our people because by the time you spend less money on food, less money on transport, education, and other things, the earning power will improve. I don’t believe in the quantum of money; it will not solve the problem.
“We have seen all the wage increases in the past. They ended up creating more frustration for the workers.”
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