Katsina-Civil servants in Katsina State on Wednesday began an indefinite strike to protest the non-implementation of the N18,000 national minimum wage by the government.

Chairman of the state council of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Aliyu Matazu, announced the strike at a news conference shortly after the council’s meeting in Katsina.

He said the decision to embark on the indefinite strike followed the council’s conviction that the state government was not ready to implement the national minimum wage for its workers.

Matazu said: “We are convinced that the state government has the capacity to pay the new minimum wage and to sustain its payment, but refuses to implement it.”

NLC has, therefore, rejected totally “the so- called table of payment presented by the state government since the table does not take into cognisance that workers are neither beggars nor slaves.’’

Matazu directed workers at all levels in the state to stay “at home indefinitely from 12 midnight Wednesday till the government is ready to implement the true, decent and realistic minimum wage.”

He also said that the congress had directed all workers and all unions affiliated to it, including the bankers’ union, health workers union, NUPENG and electricity workers union, to take part in the strike.

The NLC chairman, however, urged the workers to remain peaceful and pray for the success of the congress in that direction.

In his reaction, the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Alhaji Lawal Matazu, said that all he knew was that the state government had agreed to pay the N18,000 minimum wage and added that the governor would broadcast to the people later in the day.

The News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, recalls that seven days ago,the NLC council had called off its three-day warning strike with a threat to embark on an indefinite action.