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Minimum wage: Only greed won’t make govs meet fresh demand, NLC declares
The Nigeria Labour Congress has said penchant for wealth by the state governors was responsible for their unreadiness to pay the new minimum wage.
This is just as the NLC said the state governors have no excuse not to pay the N70,000 minimum wage.
According to NLC, if the governors can pay themselves the same amount of salaries, it is a must for every one of them to pay the new wage.
The National Treasurer of the NLC, Akeem Ambali, in an interview with Saturday PUNCH, said it was an act of wickedness for any governor to say he couldn’t pay the minimum wage.
Ambali chided Gombe State Governor, Muhammad Inuwa, for declaring that the state couldn’t pay the new wage.
He said, “Why would Gombe Governor be able to pay himself salary of the same amount with that of Lagos and Rivers, but couldn’t pay the N70,000 minimum wage? It is an act of wickedness and disrespect for workers who work day and night to develop the state.
“All of us know the prevailing hunger in the land, it is unfortunate that a governor who lives in opulence, receiving more than N500m security vote, staying in free government accommodation and paying himself fantastic salary and will still receive gratuity is saying he couldn’t pay the state workers N70,000 minimum wage.
“Workers are not slaves. His statement doesn’t show responsive leadership. We will shut down any states that fail to pay minimum wage.
“Within May 29, 2023 and today, allocations to states have increased by over 120 per cent, they have also gotten infrastructure support which doesn’t show any commensurate development in their state.
“The penchant for wealth and lack of respect for what labour stands for is why governors are unwilling to pay the minimum wage.”
He called on Nigerians, especially those protesting against bad governance to challenge their various state governors how they are managing the increased allocation from the Federal Government.
Ambali said the minimum wage was expected to take effect from May.
He said, “The old minimum wage expired in April; labour expects that the effective date for the minimum wage should be around May 2024, but it is negotiable.”
Meanwhile, Sokoto State Government has promised that to implement the new minimum wage as approved by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu recently.
The state governor, Ahmed Aliyu Sokoto, stated this during a town hall meeting on the proposed nationwide protest declared by some youths in the country.
“On our part I want to assure you that the Sokoto State Government is ready to implement the new National minimum wage as approved by Mr President
“Undoubtedly our Country is facing quite a number of challenges that include Economic down turn, Inflation, cost of living as well as Insecurity among other challenges”.
The governor noted that it is indeed obvious that the hardship being faced by ordinary Nigerians has worsened there by making lives unbearable to many citizens.
According to him,prices of some essential items have now gone up far above the purchasing power of an average Nigerian, a situation that has further aggravated the problems being faced in the country today” he added.
Recall that the Sokoto State Government was one of the few states in the country currently implementing the 30,000 minimum wage for its workforce in the state civil service.
Also, the governor of Kebbi State, Dr Nasir Idris, disclosed his administration’s readiness to have a fruitful discussion with the state union leader on the new minimum wage.
The Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Ahmed Idris, while speaking with our correspondent on telephone, said the state governor was ready to put smile on the faces of the state workers.
In Kogi State, the state Commissioner for Finance, Ashiwaju Ashiru Idris, said no date had been fixed for the implementation of the N70,000 minimum wage signed into law recently by President,Bola Tunubu.
Responding to our Correspondent’s enquiry as to when the state will commence the payment of the minimum wage, the commissioner said he had no information about when that would happen.
Also, the Nasarawa State government has expressed its readiness to align with the Federal Government of Nigeria on the new N70,000 national minimum wage for workers in the country.
Speaking with our correspondent in Lafia on Wednesday, the Senior Special Assistant to Governor Abdullahi Sule on Public Affairs, Peter Ahemba, explained that the state government had rolled out plans to begin the new payment to its workers.
He explained that the governor had long assured workers in the state that, to ensure their financial stability, he was willing to pay whatever amount the federal government and the Organised Labour agrees to pay workers across the country.
He said, “The Nasarawa State government is fully ready to begin with the payment of N70,000 as agreed by the federal government of Nigeria.
“Governor Abdullahi Sule had made his position clear on this matter that he is ready to pay whatever is agreed between the FG and Organised Labour.
“So, workers in the state have nothing to worry about because they will soon start enjoying the new national minimum wage.”
In Kano State, the government has inaugurated an Advisory Committee on the New National Minimum Wage.
The state Deputy Governor, Aminu Abdulsalam Gwarzo inaugurated the committee on behalf of the governor at the Government House.
Also speaking on the matter, the Plateau State Government said it was studying the N70,000 minimum wage offered to workers by the Federal Government.
The state Commissioner for Information, Musa Ashoms, said the government would make its position known on the matter after negotiation with the organised labour.
Speaking with Saturday PUNCH, Ashoms said, “When we are ready with our figures, we will make it known to the public.
“We do not operate the same or amount with the Federal Government which has agreed with the N70,000 minimum wage. But I can tell you that we care about our civil servants and we care about the welfare of our people”
Credit: PUNCH
By Francesca Hangeior
Formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, he hails from the United States and is the first American to be elected pope in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.
A member of the Augustinian order and former Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, Pope Leo XIV brings decades of pastoral and administrative experience to the papacy.
He is a moderate who was close to Pope Francis and spent years as a missionary in Peru, he becomes the Catholic Church’s 267th pontiff, taking the papal name Leo XIV.
Finally, white smoke emerged from the Sistine Chapel on the evening of Thursday, May 8, signalling that the Vatican has elected a new Pope. The cardinal selected to succeed Pope Francis will be announced in due course.
On Wednesday, 133 cardinals entered the chapel for a deeply choreographed ritual that has preceded the election of every Pope since 1179. The first session started with a vow of secrecy—excommunication awaits anyone who leaks details of the votes—followed by the vote.
Once the numbers were tallied, the votes were burned in a special stove set up inside the chapel. Yesterday’s black smoke informed the public that the cardinals had yet to make their decision.
The papal conclave is a centuries-old process with modern-day consequences.
Francis’ 12-year pontificate was pivotal, not just for the church, but for the globe. His advocacy for care of migrants and the poor, his tolerance for homosexuality, and his denunciation of climate change and conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine helped reset the world’s moral compass.
Yet within the church, his reformist interpretation of church doctrine—”Who am I to judge?” he famously responded when asked to weigh in on gay priests—set off a polarizing struggle between modernists and traditionalists. So too has his big tent inclusivity that welcomed practitioners of all kinds, and invited many of them, even members of the LGBTQ community and lay women, to sit with bishops and contribute their thoughts on the direction of the church in meetings called synods. It is this vision of synodality—the church as a listening one instead of a top-down enforcer of doctrine—that is at the core of Francis’ progressivism, and the biggest threat to traditionalists who want to maintain the power and influence of bishops and cardinals.
Every conclave, at its most fundamental, is a referendum on the previous pope’s legacy. Behind closed doors and sworn to secrecy, the cardinals will have had to decide if the new pope is one to continue on Francis’ radically inclusive path, or someone who will roll back his policies in favor of a more inward-looking church focused on doctrine.
That will have repercussions in a tense historical moment of religious and ethnic strife exacerbated by conflict, climate change, rising nationalism and anti-migrant sentiment are coming to the fore, says Alberto Melloni, a Vatican historian who is the director of the John XXIII Foundation for Religious Sciences in Bologna, Italy. There are relatively few global figures who can move opinion, drive conversation, and call for change like a pope. “It will be very different if we have a pope who is more worried about ideological topics of tradition than someone who makes the unity of the human family and care for the planet the first point in his agenda,” says Melloni.
There are 252 cardinals, but only those under the age of 80 took part in the conclave. Of the 133 cardinals that voted, Francis appointed 108.
Over the past several years, Francis sought to elevate bishops from underrepresented places such as Myanmar, Rwanda, and East Timor to the college of cardinals to better represent the scope of global Catholicism. Coming from wildly varying cultural backgrounds, they do not align on any consistent ideological spectrum. Many of them are more conservative on issues of homosexuality and women, even if they embrace Francis’ focus on other kinds of inclusivity. That made for a very unpredictable vote, says Melloni. “It is not liberals vs. conservatives. It is not donkeys and elephants facing one another across the aisle. It is a collage of people divided into very small groups,” aligned by theological leanings, doctrinal philosophy, or missionary experience.
Given the stakes, the competing agendas, and the constantly shifting micro alliances and priorities, it was impossible to predict from the outset who will ultimately get support from two-thirds of a very divided electorate, faced with one of the most, if not the most, important decisions of their career. “The only thing we can say with any confidence is that we’ll have a male pope,” says Melloni, when pressed to hazard a guess for the outcome ahead of the papal election.
Most of the politicking has already been done, conducted in private over informal meetings and at dinners in the nearby guesthouse where the cardinals stay. Overt campaigning is frowned upon, but it is not uncommon for trusted “kingmaker” cardinals to push for the candidates that share their values and vision for the church.
Once a papal election starts, the cardinals cannot leave the conclave except in rare cases, and they are cut off from the rest of the word, with no access to phones, the internet or even newspapers (the word conclave comes from the Latin “with key,” as in, locked up.)
Inside the chapel, the electors share a brief prayer and take an oath to observe the sanctity of the process before handwriting the name of their chosen candidate on a piece of folded paper. One by one, the cardinals will deposit their votes in a special urn. Once voting is done, the votes are tallied, then burned.
At the same time, the lawmakers also called on the President to take immediate steps by deploying security forces to the most affected areas, particularly Bokkos and Bassa—and to extend protection to other communities at risk.
Lawmakers also pressed for urgent humanitarian action, as relief items were requested for those caught in the crisis, and the ministry responsible for humanitarian matters was told to design a long-term recovery plan for the devastated villages.
This decision came after a motion was raised by Rep. Daniel Asama, who stressed the need to act swiftly. He pointed out that people living in and around Jos, especially in Bokkos and Bassa have endured wave after wave of attacks.
He painted a grim picture: “Families torn apart, homes burned down, farms abandoned, and entire communities uprooted. He insisted the violence must end and the displaced must be supported before the situation worsens.
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