MMWG backs NLC on National Minimum Wage Bill controversy

By KEMI KASUMU

The Muslim Media Watch Group of Nigeria has thrown its weight behind the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) on its demand that National Minimum Wage must not be moved from Exclusive List to Concurrent List.

In a statement issued in Lagos today by its National Coordinator Alh. Ibrahim Abdullahi stated that such a retrogressive step would pauperise Nigerian Public Service Workers, increase poverty and aggravate untold hardship for civil servants across the whole Federation.

It would be recalled that NLC and TUC on behalf of Nigerian workers last week, took to streets all over the Federation to protest against a privately sponsored bill by a member of the National Assembly that the issue of Minimum Wage in Nigeria should be moved from Exclusive List to Concurrent List. If the bill succeeds in the National Assembly and signed into law by the Executive, State Governments would jettison the National Minimum Wage and negotiate with their workers on what they have ability to pay instead of adopting Federal Salary Scale.

In its reaction, the Muslim Media Watch Group of Nigeria cautioned some Politicians in this Country against what it described as selfish and materialistic tendencies of some of them in which it said had blindfolded them; thereby making them to treat public servants as slaves in the Nigerian Society.

According to Alh. Ibrahim, who is also an HR Consultant and Fellow of Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPM), the trajectory of salary payment in Public Service in Nigeria is well-known; adding that before 1974 various States in Nigeria were paying different salaries to their workers as well as Local Government workers; but with Udoji Salary Review Commission Report of 1974 received and accepted by the then Military Government under General Yakubu Gowon, Unified Salary Structure was approved for the whole Federation. It then became a law that Federal, State and Local Government workers in Nigeria should be paid according to the new Unified Salary Structure adopted, the Group maintained.

The Media Watch Group Leader said further that that was why the Constitution Drafting Committee under General Murtala Muhammad put Minimum Wage under Exclusive List so that Nigerian Public Service workers could come-off oppressive system and join the global trend. MMWG therefore wondered how the Nation that abandoned retrogressive salary system of payment in 1974 return back to it nearly 50 years after. Such would be against ILO Convention of 1928 of which Nigeria was a party to.

The Group said inability of some States to pay approved National Minimum Wage of N30,000 sugned into law by President Muhammadu Buhari stems from Governors lack of concern for the State Workers, corruption in the System featuring under-inflated contracts, humongous and unaccountable monthly Security Votes by States administration, ghost workers syndrome both at the States and Local Governments, large number of idle political appointees and lack of holistic desire to improve IGR at the States level.

The Group called on all Members of the National Assembly and States House of Assemblies across the whole Federation to reject the ill-motivated bill of retrogression currently in the NASS. It further stated that a clear example of executive recklessness at the States level is the Judicial, Legislative and Local Governments Autonomy Bills passed by NASS and signed into law by President Muhammad Buhari which the Group said ‘are not being made to work’ because Governors are opposed to them. This is a classical example of what is now being proposed by a member of the National Assembly.

The Muslim Media Watch Group of Nigerua finally condemned the statement credited to the Governor of Ekiti State Mr. Kayode Fayemi who is also the Chairman of Governors Forum that ‘Federal Government cannot force National Minimum Wage on them’.

This comment is highly provocative and ridiculous after 2 years of National Minimum Wage approval of which Governors were ‘part and parcel’ of the decision, the Group said. MMWG therefore called all all Civil Society Organizations, Women and Youth Organizations and indeed the entire Nigerian citizens to resist the calamity and agony the political class want to foist on them.

The Muslim Media Watch Group commended President Muhammadu Buhari for implementing the N30,000 Minimum Wage he signed into law and called on him to reject the bill absolutely if the NASS and States Assemblies erroneously or deliberately passed the bill.

Any retrogressive legislation on remuneration especially salary payment would eventually affect the retirement benefits if workers as entitlements of workers after retirement are based on what they earned while in service, the Group concluded.