June 7, (THEWILL)- State Governors under the aegis of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) have urged the negotiating parties of the tripartite committee on the national minimum wage “to look beyond just signing a document for the sake of it”.
Rejecting the N60,000 offer earlier proposed by the Federal Government, the Governors said, “Any agreement to be signed should be sustainable and realistic.”
THEWILL reports that the Governors’ position was part of the outcome of a two-day meeting of the Forum held between Thursday and Friday in Abuja.
Labour had suspended its nationwide industrial action for a week, and threatened to resume without notice, if the government failed to meet its demand.
The unions had earlier rejected the N60,000 offer of minimum wage before it embarked on the strike.
Compelled to go back to negotiation after President Bola Tinubu assured that the Federal Government will offer a national minimum wage far above N60,000, the Governors, in a statement issued by the acting Director, Media and Public Affairs at the NGF secretariat, Hajiya Halimah Salihu Ahmed, rejected even the proposed N60,000 minimum wage, saying it was too high.
The Forum urged “all parties to consider the fact that the minimum wage negotiations also involve consequential adjustments across all cadres, including pensioners”.
According to the statement, the state chief executives agreed that a new minimum wage is due, and sympathised “with labour unions in their push for higher wages”.
They, however, observed that many states would spend all their federal allocations on salaries with nothing left for development purposes.
“In fact, a few states will end up borrowing to pay workers every month. We do not think this will be in the collective interest of the country, including workers,” the Governors said.
They appealed to parties involved, “especially the labour unions (to) consider all the socioeconomic variables and settle for an agreement that is sustainable, durable, and fair to all other segments of the society who have a legitimate claim to public resources”.
