Nigeria | Minimum wage: Governors conspiracy against workers, presidency

Ambode, Wada, Aregbesola

I AGREE totally with the school of thought which says that the Nigerian Governors Forum, NGF, by its recent pronouncement of not being able to pay the minimum wage of N18, 000 to workers, has declared war against Nigerians [not only workers or labour unions] and as such Nigerians should arise in battle against these governors.

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I pray that the spirit of the founding fathers of this country, the spirit of our ancestors should arise and battle these dealers parading themselves as leaders to a disgraceful end. I pray as well that God shall reveal to the Presidency enough wisdom to know the illegality of the NGF and be able to distance itself from them, by showing its solidarity with the Nigerian people.

The NGF, a clearly identifiable illegal body, without any constitutional backing, met in the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa on Tuesday November 17, 2015, to conspire against the Nigerian workforce and by extension, the Nigerian people.

Their communique could have read like this: “That without recourse to the legality of the minimum wage as epitomised by the Act of Parliament which created it before it was signed into Law by a past President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, we hereby resolve to discard that piece of legislation.

“That we shall present this resolution of ours, for the emasculation of the Nigerian workers, to the Federal Executive Council. That there is nothing the Nigerian workers can do about this, once we the Governors and the Federal Executive Council concretise this conspiracy. Even the National Assembly that made the law in the first place will not see any illegality in our action. We so resolved”.

The governors based their inability to comply with the law [because the minimum wage remains a law of the Federal Republic]on the dwindling allocation coming from Abuja as result of falling oil price. They mentioned categorically that “they were comfortable paying the minimum wage when a barrel of crude oil sold for $126 and there was no way they could pay the same now that crude has nose-dived to $41”.

What a shameless group of people, these governors. Even with the dwindling revenue from oil proceeds, some of the governors’ monthly security vote is more than enough to pay two or three states workforce salaries for months. Take, for example, Katsina State whose governor colluded with his State’s House of Assembly in applying and collecting “bail-off fund” from the Federal Government under the pretence that salaries of workers were not paid whereas his predecessor paid salaries up to May 2015 ending, before he took over as Governor.

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Their cry over the fall in monthly allocation, better known in some quarters as “sharing of the national cake”, presents these governors as economically bankrupt and thereby unfit to govern. It shows that most of them went into office to steal from the national purse. It shows that they lack ideas to create wealth and therefore are a liability to the nation. It is evident that they cannot take us to Eldorado. If they were to be reasonable like Adams Oshiomole of Edo State who has distanced himself from this minimum wage palaver, they should have known how to survive even if monthly allocation from Abuja is stopped.

It is a simple lesson they should have learnt from Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who, when he was governor of Lagos State, suffered total blockade of monthly allocation in the hands of then President Olusegun Obasanjo for four years. Yet Bola Tinubu did not only pay salaries but continued with project execution for the good people of Lagos. That is the way to be a good leader and governor. Create your own wealth by looking inwardly because every state has something great that can put food on its table. That is the sense in “Resource Control”.

A fact that needed to be quickly established about this NGF is the unconstitutionality of its existence. It is neither a creation of the Nigerian Constitution nor is it registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission [when I last checked]. Yet, NGF has continued its functionality of illegality without any legal challenge from any quarters, not even by the legion of brilliant lawyers in this country. We definitely miss Chief Gani Fawehimi, a lawyer of lawyers, the only Nigerian “without corruptible inducement price”, in the words of former Military President, Ibrahim Babangida. He would have done the needed by demystifying this obnoxious monster through the instrumentality of law by now.

My major worry however is the continuous recognition of the NGF by the Presidency. President Goodluck Jonathan did it to his own political peril. First was the betrayal of “a gentleman agreement” he had with the governors in removal of oil subsidy which he announced on January of 2012.

The same governors that lured him to the sharing table of the oil subsidy removal denounced him and indeed invited the whole world to “come and hang a bad President” at the Gani Fawehimi Freedom Square in Ojota area of Lagos. Jonathan did not learn his lessons as he continued his personal and official romance with the NGF until the Chairman of the Forum, Chibuke Amaechi, took him[Jonathan] to the cleaners – the rest is now history.

So, the current presidency should be warned to steer clear of illegality which the NGF stands for because they [the governors] shall fall before the Nigerian people in the battle over minimum wage.

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Does it mean that President Buhari has nothing to learn from his predecessor on the evil and danger of intimacy with the NGF? Or why on earth will he opened the door of the Presidential Villa Banquet for the NGF meeting, from where the declaration of war against Nigerian people was plotted by the governors? The presidency better be warned to stay clear of illegality which the NGF stands for because they [the governors] shall fall before the Nigerian people in this battle of minimum wage.

Godwin Etakibuebu a commentator on current affairs, wrote from Lagos.