BY VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG

IBADAN-ORGANISED Labour weekend urged workers in the country to use the general elections to vote out politicians, especially governors and candidates whose actions and utterances had shown that they were not only anti-workers, but also not ready to pay the N18.000 new minimum wage.

At a briefing  on the forthcoming National Delegate Conference of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, scheduled for June, President of SSANU, Comrade Promise Adewusi, described governors and governorship candidates not disposed to the new wage as enemies of the masses and Nigerian workers.

Comrade Adewusi, who is also a Deputy President of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, commended President Jonathan and the National Assembly for ensuring realisation of the N18, 000 minimum wage, but argued that  the amount was  not yet a living wage as it was only a take off point.

He, however, appealed to the President to make copies of the minimum wage law public, so that Nigerians especially the governors, could be  abreast of its content.

Comrade Adewusi said:  “You all will agree with me that the N18, 000 is not a living wage but it is a take off point. So, we will not want anybody to play politics with the lives of Nigerian workers. Therefore, this N18, 000 must cut across.  Those governors who are hesitating, those governors who insist that they cannot pay N18, 000 minimum wage are enemies of Nigeria and they should be flushed out and those who are not flushed out, we commit them to Holy Ghost Fire.”

“We thank Mr. President for signing the national minimum wage of N18, 000. We trust Mr. President when he promised us that he was going to do everything within his powers to ensure that this bill was not only signed, but will ensure its implementation. We believed him and that was one of the reasons the three-day warning strike was called off after only one day. We still believe him; we trust him as a President that we can believe in but we need to convince the generality of our members who have been infested with all kinds of rumours.”