Ayodele Olalere
The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Lagos Council has said that the Governors Forum stopped President Bola Tinubu from approving N100,000 minimum wage for workers which made the President settle for N70,000.
While reacting to the new minimum wage, the chairman of the Lagos State council,
Funmi Sessi said the reaction of the governors after the President muted the idea of approving N100,000 made the President to backtrack
“I would like to express a mixed reaction to the newly approved N70,000 minimum wage by the federal government in the sense that we believed, and we know that President Bola Tinubu would have done better than the approved N70,000.
“If not for the reactions of the Governors Forum, where the governors insisted on N50,000, we believe President Tinubu’s approval would have been in the range of N100,000,” she said.
She continued, “Though, the N70,000 falls short of our expectations but we still thank God, at least we were able to push a little further than the N62,000 the government was proposing to pay because of the reactions of the governors and private employers as well. However, we hope with the N70,000 as a minimum we will still be able to live with living demands.
Seesi appealed to the government to effectively monitor the market forces to prevent those rendering services and goods from arbitrary increments of prices of goods and services rendered to the public.
She however urged the Lagos State government to look critically into the approved minimum wage and add to it considering the high cost of living in the state compared with other states such as Ogun, Oyo, Ekiti, and others, adding that N70,000 is not sustainable in Lagos.
