Minimum Wage: How FG dribbled Labour

There are fears that the unending negotiation between the Federal Government and organised Labour on the new minimum wage might be a deliberate ploy to deny workers in Nigeria, the opportunity of having an improved wage package before the end of the year.

Sunday Telegraph learnt that the Federal Government might not be totally committed to the idea of a new minimum wage, given its insistence that it could not afford it throughout the period of negotiations.

Similarly, the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), a major influential group, which the Federal Government surreptitiously brought to the negotiation table, also orchestrated the non-affordability theory apparently to frustrate the process.

Some labour unionists who spoke to Sunday Telegraph in confidence, have equally expressed fears that the Federal Government and top echelon of the three Labour Centres might also be playing on the intelligence of Nigerians, given the long route the minimum wage agitation had travelled since the journey began a year ago.

The conspiracy theory has further been fuelled by the way the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba, suspended the planned nationwide strike last Tuesday on the premise that Labour had concluded negotiations and received assurances on minimum wage of N30,000, only for the Presidency to deny the figure the following day.

New Telegraph, November 11, 2018

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