Atiku Carpets FG over U-turn on N30,000 Minimum Wage as Labour Threatens to Reinstate Strike Order

Pat Stevens/

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has accused President Muhammadu Buhari and his deputy, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, of feeding at public expense.

The former vice-president also claimed the two leaders collect hardship allowances of 50 per cent of their annual basic salary.

Atiku spoke in reaction to a statement issued by the Presidency yesterday denying reports that the President had accepted a new minimum wage of N30,000 proposed by the tripartite committee.

His remarks were contained in a statement issued by his Media Campaign Organisation in Abuja yesterday.

He lamented that long-suffering Nigerian workers, who he said were the main sufferers of the hardship caused by “the incompetence of the present administration”, did not have any hardship allowance and are expected to live on unrealistic minimum wage.

He alleged that approbation and reprobation “ are characteristics of the Buhari administration and that it is evidence of lack of leadership at the very top that is putting our economy in peril”.

The statement reads in part, “Just two weeks ago, two of the world’s largest banks, HSBC and UBS, pulled out of Nigeria citing lack of policy stability as their reason.

“This same reason was given by Procter and Gamble when they pulled out last year. In the span of the three years that this administration has been in office, more than 500 companies have pulled out of Nigeria for similar reasons. Nigeria under President Buhari has become synonymous with policy flip-flopping.

“A government is only as reliable as its word and if its word is not reliable then nothing else about the government will be stable. This is why Nigeria suffered from a recession under this administration and it’s right now at risk of another recession.

It added, “At the risk of repeating ourselves, we urge the Buhari administration to note that Nigerian workers are the goose that lays the golden egg that top members of this government are enjoying to the detriment of those laying the egg.

“We are aware that both President Buhari and Vice-President Osinbajo, despite living and feeding at the public expense, collect a hardship allowance of 50 per cent of their annual basic salaries, whereas, the long-suffering Nigerian workers, who are the main sufferers of the hardship caused by the incompetence of this administration, do not have any hardship allowance and are expected to live on the unlivable minimum wage of the Buhari government.”

The statement said the actions of the President and his deputy were a testament to how badly the country had treated its workforce over the last three years.

It said it was during the same period that Nigeria was officially declared the world headquarters for extreme poverty by the World Poverty Clock and the World Economic Forum.

“We can only change this by paying our workers a living wage as opposed to the starvation wages now paid to them by the Buhari administration,” the statement added.

The Atiku campaign office called on the President to keep faith with the agreement, which he said his government freely reached with labour and affirm the new minimum wage.

Meanwhile, Organised Labour has threatened to go on strike if the Federal Government fails to approve and implement the N30,000 minimum wage recommended by the tripartite committee.

The General Secretary of the Trade Union Congress, Mr Musa Lawal, said this while reacting to comments by the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, that the report of the tripartite committee was a mere recommendation.

Lawal said Organised Labour decided to shelve its planned strike because the government had expressed the willingness to accept the report of the tripartite committee, The Punch reports.

He warned that anything short of the full implementation of the report would be met with stiff opposition.

The TUC general secretary said: “They can say anything they want to say. Why were they panicky before? Why did they agree to the N30, 000? They can call it a mere recommendation or whatever they want to call it but the important thing is that at the end of the day if we do not get the N30,000, they know what we will do.”

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