Comrade Timi Frank, a former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has urged the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress to decline any minimum wage proposal from the federal government that falls short of N250,000.
Frank, in a statement issued on Friday in Abuja, accused the President Bola Tinubu-led administration of double standards in the fixing of salaries, saying what is good for judicial office holders is good for Nigerian workers.
He said if the bill to increase the salary of judges by 300 per cent could be hurriedly passed in the two chambers of the national assembly, he wondered why same can not be done for workers.
Frank noted: “How can you increase the salary of an arm of government that is already earning a humongous salary by 300 per cent and add peanuts to the paltry N30,000 that workers have been compelled to live with in this country as minimum wage in the last five years?
“Why did the President send an Executive Bill to the National Assembly to effect a 300 per cent upward review in the salaries of judicial office holders but set up a tripartite committee to negotiate a “starvation wage” (apologies to NLC President Joe Ajaero) for suffering Nigerian workers instead of a “living wage” he promised them on assumption of office in May last year?”
“Any amount below N250,000.00 cannot be considered a decent wage for Nigerian workers considering the present socio-economic hardship in the country.
Frank stressed that the executive, legislative and judicial arms of government ought to reduce their salaries and allowances to accommodate Nigerian workers who could barely afford one meal a day rather than increasing their take pay, which is already overbloated and economically, financially and socially suffocates workers.
He, therefore,urged the leadership of organized labour to be resolute in their demand to ensure that workers get a deserved living wage at this time in the Nation’s developmental journey.
