A former Speaker of Oyo State House of Assembly, Akin Onigbinde, yesterday, said the issue of the minimum wage must be removed from the Exclusive Legislative List of the Constitution.
Onigbinde said that in a federal system, states should be allowed to determine their wage structure based on their ability to pay and economic viability.
The former Speaker, who spoke with The Guardian in Ibadan, maintained that it was not viable to have a unitary system in running the nation’s labour relations.
He said: ”It is one of the things we need as a federal state to fortify our identity. What a state can pay is far different from what another state can pay. You cannot legislate from the Federal Government what a state should pay its workers, which its revenue profile does not support. You will just create a problem for such a state.
”Let each state be truly federal. Look at their income. Let the labour be involved to see the financial capacities of the states. Is it only the salaries they are going to pay? If they are going to pay, are they going to lay off some workers? They cannot borrow to pay salaries. I think it is one of the areas we need to look into in the Exclusive Legislative List to face the reality.
”Now, governments are more tending towards business. When they talk about minimum wage, are they also talking about minimum performance? Are you also insisting that workers must perform minimally up to a particular point? Are you talking about rights without responsibilities? These are the issues to evaluate. It is not viable to have a unitary system in running our labour relations.”
