By John Shiklam in Kaduna
The Kaduna State Chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), on Tuesday chided state governors for frustrating the implementation of the proposed new national minimum wage of N30,000, saying they are out of touch with the present economic reality.
Addressing workers on Tuesday in Kaduna during the protest in compliance with the directive of the National Secretariat of the NLC, state chairman of the congress, Adamu Ango, said governors were selfish.
According to him, governors and their families don’t go to markets and therefore, are ignorant of the sufferings of workers and other Nigerians.
“Everything about them has been taken care of by the government with huge sums of money.
“Same people hide under security vote to spend any amount of money without being audited, but for workers to be paid N30,000 they are saying no.
“If government is truly fighting corruption, they should pay a living wage not even minimum wage,” Ango said.
He explained that the nation wide protest was called by the NLC to sensitise workers on the agitation for a new national minimum wage.
He called on the federal government to transmit a bill to the National Assembly for the N30,000 new minimum wage so that it becomes law, since negotiations had been concluded.
“We are not asking for anything, we have made sacrifices enough, we create wealth, but some few individuals are now eating up the wealth and taking us as slaves” the labour leader added.
He called on state governors to be judicious in managing resources by cutting off all unnecessary expenses.
He also called on workers to be resolute, firm and vote out anybody who is anti labour during the forthcoming general election.
