Nigerians expects reasonable minimum wage that’ll increase workers’ purchasing power — CONUA
By Jeleel Olawale
The National President of the Congress of University Academics (CONUA), Prof. Niyi Sunmonu has said that Nigerians are expecting a reasonable minimum wage that will increase workers’ purchasing power from the Federal Government.
Sunmonu made the call while speaking on Federal-Labour negotiation on minimum wage deadlock with the NewsDirect on Wednesday, in Ile-Ife.
He said that the citizens expected that President Bola Tinubu would improve the welfare of Nigerians after May 29, 2023 pronouncement of subsidy removal.
According to him, his policies should be citizen-centred in a bid to improve the purchasing capacity of every working citizens including business people and all sorts of people.
“But what we saw the government doing is to increase the electricity tariff, whereas “subsidy gone” statement has brought untold hardship, inflation is more than 35 percent now.
”So, this leads to the issue of minimum wage, the Federal Government set up the tripartite committee that submitted their own proposal with rationale with the hope that the government will come to the negotiation table,” he explained.
He condemned the N48,000 put on the table by the Federal Government without considering the economic inflation, food inflation among others.
The CONUA President stated that N48,000 cannot solve the problems on ground, but would rather bring more hardship to Nigerians, urged the Federal Government to come to the table with union leaders with his reasons.
“He ascertained that labour is part of the country, they are stakeholders in the country, if you bring confusing evidence, we have to get to an amicable resolution.
“So I expect the government to bring the labour back to the table and reconsider the proposal of N48,000 with his own rationale.
“Nigerians are yearning for change, with the hope of current government promise, Government should expedite the completion of work of the tripartite committee,” he clarified.
Sunmonu appealed to the Federal Government to ensure that the agency responsible for price control be activated to do its work such that prices of goods do not skyrocket to unbearable levels.
