September 09, (THEWILL) — The Ogun State chapter of Organised Labour has called on the state government to implement a N150,000 minimum wage for civil servants, aiming to alleviate the economic hardship impacting workers’ quality of life.
They demanded prompt salary payments, provision of CNG buses for transportation at subsidised fares, and quarterly release and payment of retirement gratuities, among other benefits.
This follows the approval of a new minimum wage of N104,000 by Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodinma and N90,000 by Ebonyi State Governor, Francis Nwifuru, respectively.
The union made this known on Monday in a letter addressed to Governor Dapo Abiodun through the Office of the Head of Service, where they submitted their demand for a wage increase, titled “Plea for Consideration of Upward Review of the New Minimum Wage.”
The letter was signed by the Chairman of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Comr. Akeem Lasisi; Nigeria Labour Congress(NLC) Com. Ademola Hameed-Benco; Joint Negotiating Council(JNC), Isa Olude; NLC’s Secretary, Chris Omoneh, TUC’s Secretary, Com. Olusegun Adebiyi and JNC’s Secretary, Com. Olayemi Oloyede
The workers called on the state government to consider a 100% increase of the current N77,000 minimum wage, attributing skyrocketing inflation and the cost of food items affecting their basic needs as major reasons for their new demands.
They called on the Abiodun-led administration to come to their rescue and accede to the request of N150,000 minimum wage, just like the Imo and Ebonyi State Governments did to workers in their respective states, to cushion the effects of the economic downturn on their day-to-day needs.
The workers, who appealed to the governor to save them from hunger and untold hardship occasioned by fuel subsidy removal and instability of foreign exchange rate, said that the state government, with the huge increase from the allocation received from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) and its Internally Generated Revenue(IGR), could pay the amount.
They said that the dwindling purchasing power of consumption of essential goods and the cost of transportation, as well as the daily struggle to afford basic necessities and make ends means, had made the N77,000 minimum wage not sustainable for them.
The letter reads:
“Your Excellency,
PLEA FOR CONSIDERATION OF UPWARD REVIEW OF THE NEW MINIMUM WAGE
We respectfully present the warmest of fraternal compliments to Your Excellency as expressed by the State Leadership of the Organised Labour as well as the entire affiliates of our Congresses, and most especially, the State Government Civil/Public Service employees.
In the same breath, mention must also be made of those various economic and social interventions aimed purposely to help ameliorate the hard-pressing existential realities that we all are experiencing. Prompt payment of salary, the CNG buses providing us transport with subsidised fares, quarterly release and payment of gratuity of retirees, etc.
To us, Your Excellency, these measures which your administration has relentlessly pursued should ordinarily, in a few months, provide the enablement for the entire citizens of our dear State. Tenaciously, we hold on to the belief that the Renewed Hope crusade of the President of our Republic, His Excellency, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, surely, will lead us all into the Nigeria of our dreams.
However, Your Excellency, in spite of these sustained and commendable efforts of both the Federal and the State Governments, our day-to-day living has been filled with highly depressive thoughts. Quite frankly, and as though the nation’s economic dynamics have been on overdrive, we, the salary earners, have come to the point of self-blame and regret.
It is needless to start itemising one after another, either from foods, clothing, or, as basic as medicine, whose costs, in recent times, have been on the upswing. Evidence of our sorry state is readily found in the rapidly expanding street trading in most of our State’s major cities and towns, whilst we, the government workers, are daily being bombarded with unimaginable financial requests from relatives and dependants.
Increasingly, and it calls for worry, actually, that people with curable ailments now patronise unorthodox medical practitioners whose herbal curative claims are not only bogus but also mind boggling Perhaps it is this disturbing socioeconomic trend that the nation’s number one citizen has come to grasp with when His Excellency appealed to the subnationals’ administrative executives to “attend to your people’s needs.
Your Excellency, we humbly plead with you, Sir, to kindly find means to urgently rescue us from this depressing economic situation. We are strongly convinced that the recent exemplary gestures of the upward minimum wage reviews in Imo and Ebonyi States were in clear and loud responses to President Tinubu’s charge and that of the citizens’ cries. Incidentally, the two States are in the South East and good enough, Your Excellency is the General Officer Commanding, i.e., the sitting Chairman of the Southern Nigeria Governors’ Forum.
The South of our nation always leads, whilst the rest aligns. It can also be dissected, that it is via the superstructure of the Public Service and its governance chains that state wealth gets distributed. It will be in order, by all economic theoretical standards and principles, that the use and employment of upward review of minimum wage serves as an effective tool to reboot the dwindling fortunes of citizens.
Furthermore, Your Excellency, the various statistics on the nation’s economy are more telling that indeed, the reforms of the Federal Government, though are yielding desired and targeted outcomes but the expected corresponding impacts have not been felt by common citizens.
“The huge turnovers, as reflected in the Federation Account Allocation Committee [FAAC] disbursements since the berth of the reforms amongst other governments’ incomes, are a ready testament to the improved fortunes of the country. Curiously, however, these positive signals are clearly at variance with our realities of living. Suffice to plead with Your Excellency to kindly and urgently consider the upward minimum wage review.”
Seun Shotunde, THEWILL
