![](\"http:\/\/arewa.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/wabba.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWabba insisted that the labour unions would focus on achieving the task, and urged his members to be resolute to vote out any governor who defies the law after President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s assent to the proposal.<\/p>\n
The governors, after the report proposing N30,000 minimum wage was submitted to President Buhari, had made their position known that many of the states lack the financial wherewithal to pay such amount.<\/p>\n
Responding to the governors\u2019 position in Ado Ekiti on Saturday during the 75th birthday of the former Chairman of the Medical and Health Union of Nigeria (MHUN), Ekiti chapter, Comrade Johnson Ogunseeyin, Wabba described the governor\u2019s position as an afterthought.<\/p>\n
The occasion was attended by all labour leaders in the state, led by the NLC Chairman, Comrades Ade Adesanmi and Blessing Oladele.<\/p>\n
The NLC President stated that six governors were represented on the tripartite committee composed by the federal government to argue the issue of minimum wage and that it took the labour over a year to arrive at a midway wage of N30,000, saying it was inhuman for governors to turn around and said they have no capacity to pay.<\/p>\n
\u201cI consider this governors\u2019 position as a trick that was not new to us. There was no agitation about labour that never experienced such, but we consider it an afterthought.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn case they didn\u2019t know, labour started with a proposal of N66,000, so N30,000 was a midway approach to resolve the crisis. We didn\u2019t just request for it, but we considered the high inflation rate, the poor purchasing power of naira among other variables.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we commend about six governors for saying they will pay N30,000 minimum wage, we challenge those saying they can\u2019t pay to go to their states and tell workers and pensioners that they won\u2019t pay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis agitation started last year November, even when the review was supposed to take place in 2016. The governors were asked to send memoranda and 21 states complied.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey all had inputs. They even had six representatives on the
\nnegotiating committee, so I didn\u2019t know what they were talking about after the report had been submitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn case the governors didn\u2019t know, the police, DSS and Nigeria Army that were providing security for them and the Nigerian populace are
\ninvolved in this minimum wage issue. So, we consider their refusal to comply as a way to divert of our attentions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe governors may not care about workers because they are getting humongous security votes. Councilor who has no certificates receive
\nmore than a PhD holder. I want to believe this is a class contestation and we are up to the task.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to tell the governors that we won\u2019t succumb to their antics. We will receive nothing less than N30,000 minimum wage for our people and we have directed workers to vote out any state governor or his
\nsuccessor who says he is not ready to pay\u201d.<\/p>\n
Wabba stated that the celebrant, Ogunseeyin was one of the few patriots and unionists who fought for improved welfare for Nigerian workers.<\/p>\n
The State Head of Service, Dr. Gbenga Faseluka urged Nigerian workers to consider productivity as a watchword, saying this would help them in fighting for their rights when the need arises.\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The National President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba, has declared that the position canvassed by governors that the states can\u2019t pay N30,000 minimum wage was a distraction that won\u2019t distract the entire workforce across the country. Wabba insisted that the labour unions would focus on achieving the task, and urged his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[6884,5047,7892,4448],"class_list":["post-62281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ayuba-wabba","tag-new-minimum-wage","tag-nigeria-governors-forum","tag-nlc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}