Labour charges Buhari on review of workers minimum wage

ORGANISED labour has said that a review of workers’ minimum wage by the National Assembly will determine the success of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

Labour also condemned the bill proposed by the legislators against the activities of social media in Nigeria, saying that it was reminiscent of the defunct Decree 4 of the former military regimes to subvert democracy.

The Deputy President of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Issa Aremu, in a statement yesterday, in Kaduna commended President Buhari for promptly distancing his administration from “the proposed notorious Social Media Bill undergoing curious accelerated hearing at the Senate.”
According to him, “we also call on the Sara

ki-led Senate to stop this legislative exercise in futility, which has commendably elicited avoidable mass national and international condemnation and put the Senate already in the crisis of credibility on the defensive.”

Aremu stated: “The point cannot be overstated; elected officers at all levels must not criminalise the demands of the citizens for accountability, however crude and imperfect the demands are presented, either by social or mainstream media.
“Nigeria already suffers laws-overload on libel. One more law on social media will be a legal overkill. Whoever is not prepared to be accountable again and again relying on legislative cover has no business in publspace.”

Stressing the need for the lawmakers to address the issue of workers’ minimum wage review, the labour chief explained that, “the 8th Assembly inherited scores of bills which if passed would complement the efforts of President Buhari to deliver on the change promises, not unsolicited Social Media Bill.”

For instance, Aremu pointed out that the, “two critical bills begging for the 8th Senate’s urgent attention are the 2010 Minimum Wage Act due for a review in October this year and Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which has been gathering dust since 1999.”

The Senators should avoid alienation from those who elected them, buy in into the change agenda and pass selfless legislations for national agenda instead of pushing emergency self-serving laws. Nigeria and Nigerians are desperate for promised development and prosperity and only legislations that foster development agenda make sense at this time of perennial fuel scarcity and non-payment of miserable wages of working men and women.”