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The Nigerian Governors Forum, NGF, has reacted to the call for the implementation of minimum wage.
NGF said they were not voted into power to pay salaries alone.
The chairman of the NGF and Zamfara state governor, Abdulaziz Yari, said they were voted to also provide good roads, electricity, education and other necessary amenities.
The governor said this was part of the discussion the Forum had at a meeting on Wednesday night.
He noted that governors cannot perform any magic as funds were needed “for these things”.
The NGF Chairman lamented that states governments have been limited to only paying of salaries while other sectors such as health, electricity, education, among others, are not getting enough attention.
He said, “We have a committee of six which represented us in discussions in the committee headed by labour minister.
“The committee is yet to give us the final report. When they give us the final report, for which they have our mandate to present our position, and the position most likely is to look at the record of up to 14 years.
“For instance, in global practice, in your income, how much are you spending as salary? So that we can start from there. They have given us interim report, that at the federal government level, over 82 percent is being spent on overhead which cannot move the country forward in terms of infrastructure development and development that we need now.
“So, on our own part, we are saying we are going to look at how our income are trained from our final account from 14 years ago so that we can come up and stay in the middle.
“I don’t think you people voted us for only to pay salaries. You are looking for good roads, electricity, education and others. So, we can’t do magic. It’s only when we have the funds do all those things.”
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