WHEN politicians are out for votes they can postpone problems, pretend to solve some and behave as if they no longer know what the issues are. The search for votes is too important to be left at the whims of labour, which threatened to disrupt the elections. It is time to play politics with the minimum wage.

The elections are too close for the President to displease any constituency, but his major headache was how to remain in good terms with state governors, who are opposed to the additional burden of the minimum wage.
A 2009 Federal Government tri-partite committee recommended the minimum wage of N18, 000 more than a year ago.  A retired Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice S. M. A. Belgore headed the committee.  Its membership was from representatives of federal and state governments, organised private sector, small and medium enterprises, and trade unions.

Nigerian workers when they got a minimum wage of N125 (about $250) 30 years ago under President Shehu Umaru Aliyu Shagari were better off than they would be with even N18,000 (about $116), no thanks to inflation and poor policies that have eroded the purchasing power of the Naira.

Last year at the May Day rally, President Goodluck Jonathan was applauded when he said government would pay the new minimum wage, a ploy it seems was meant to pre-empt a warning strike labour had slated for May 3.
When the report was presented to government on 1 July 2010, the committee exhibited further commitment to the assignment by including a draft new national minimum wage bill that government could send to the National Assembly.

“I have the confidence that government and labour will be able to sort it out amicably and then think it will not result into any serious industrial action. I believe that labour will agree that within this period that I have been in office that we have demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that it is a very labour friendly government,” the President in Lagos last November when labour called another strike.

“It must go to the National Assembly because the law must be made and the minimum wage does not affect only government employees and that is what Nigerians should know,” he said then.

Government sent all types of bills to the National Assembly since then, but it kept the minimum wage bill. However, the National Assembly passed the bill last month. The President told labour leaders on Tuesday that he had signed the law.

Labour matters are on the federal exclusive legislative area. Part I  of the Exclusive Legislative List of the 1999 Constitution, Item 34 states,  “Labour, including trade unions, industrial relations; conditions, safety and welfare of labour; industrial disputes; prescribing a national minimum wage for the Federation or any part thereof; and industrial arbitration” under the authority of the Federal Government.

State governors, beneficiaries of favourable provisions of the Constitution, do not want to implement the minimum wage. The President’s assent may just mark the beginning of nationwide disputes over the national minimum wage.

Politics of the minimum wage kept the decision to this late hour.