The National Secretary of Nigeria’s Labour Party, Barr. Olukayode Ajulo has recommended an upward review of Nigerian Workers minimum wage, in accordance with the extant National Minimum Wage Act signed by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010.
Barr. Ajulo, a constitutional lawyer who also doubles as the Chairman of Egalitarian Mission for Africa, said the present wages of Nigerian workers going by inflation indices was below international standards.
“The N18,000 minimum wage currently in place in Nigeria is grossly inadequate to cater for any home. What is worse is that these same workers who toil for the nation are compelled to buy from the same market that the politicians looting the nation’s treasury go to,” Ajulo said. “Ideally, minimum wages should be reviewed regularly in order to maintain workers’ purchasing power, especially in the face of skyrocketing prices on the market. At the current exchange rate of N 166 naira to $1 dollar, no worker should earn less than N 25,000, if the N 125 minimum wage when the 1981 minimum wage Act was enacted is anything to go by.
He warned that if the trend of the rich getting richer and the woes of the masses continued unabated, Nigeria maybe facing a situation that would be worse than the Boko Haram Insurgency.
“The Nigerian workers constitute major stakeholders in the electioneering process. We cannot get our democratic process right with workers that are hungry,” he said.
Ajulo, however, urged the Nigerian workers to also rise up to the situation to demand for their rights in the polity.
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