Bamidele Aturu

I have been reluctant to participate in the unnecessary and wicked debate as to whether States can afford to pay N18,000 as the minimum wage to Nigerian toiling workers.

The reason is that I consider it very shameful indeed that the debate can come up at all. It is grossly irresponsible for State Governors, many of who travel on chartered planes for over N1.5 Million for less than an hour’s flight, to say that they lack money to pay those who produce the wealth of the country a paltry N18,000 per month. The debate is unnecessary, uncalled for, diversionary, evil, malicious, unjustifiable, exasperating and provocative.

All decent Nigerians, who are not part of the thieving class, must do everything possible to ensure that the strike is total and effective. The strike can only be total in my view if it leads ultimately to a regime of just wages in Nigeria. Of course just wages means that there will no longer be jumbo pay for both the legislators and the executive.

It means that Governors will not travel at our expense with a coterie of useless aides who merely feed fat on the sweat of the working people. It also means a reduction in the cost of governance.

I therefore support the labour movement in the just struggle to ensure that Nigerians are paid decent and just wages for their labour. Democracy has no meaning without a just system of compensation.

It is anathema to commonsense that those who do nothing in this country corner the wealth of the country. Our people can no longer suffer the irony. I hope that this strike should knock some sense into those who pretend to govern our people that they have all to lose in the present struggle, while the workers have only their chains to lose.

I am aware of the plot by the Governors’ to impose a cynical interpretation of the National Minimum Wage Act on the people in order to escape their obligation.

They must be told in plain language that they cannot do that safely and without regret. Section 2 of the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act 2011 makes it clear and puts it beyond any peradventure that it shall be ‘the duty of every employer to pay a wage not less than N18,000 per month to every worker under his employment’. This is an unavoidable statutory obligation. The position of our industrial relations practice is that the National Minimum wage cuts across board.

This practice or convention is diametrically opposed to the interpretation that governments would have met their obligation by paying all their employees no less than N18,000 without the usual, customary and conventional adjustments in the wage structure for all categories of workers.

That would not represent best practice and will therefore, in my view, as our labour law stands be illegal. But I will not even recommend legal solution to our labour movement. This is a political struggle. They should be confident that their demand is both legal and moral.