The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has called on governors who have expressed unwillingness to pay the new N70,000 minimum wage recently signed into law by president Bola Tinubu to resign from office.
NLC’s call is coming after Gombe state governor Mr Inuwa Yahaya announced last week that his administration lacks the financial capacity to pay the new minimum wage.
He said this during a meeting with labour leaders, civil society organizations, and traders associations at the Government House in Gombe.
But while reacting to Yahaya’s declaration, Benson Upah, spokesman of the NLC, advised the governor to step down.
“He should quit if he cannot pay. He took an oath of office to uphold the law and not to break it,” Upah stated.
President Tinubu signed the new Minimum Wage Act into law last week, nearly two weeks after agreeing on the N70,000 minimum wage with organized labour.
On July 18, the Federal Government, organized labour, and the private sector concluded negotiations, with Tinubu reducing labour’s initial demand of N250,000 per month to N70,000 per month.
The federal government has assured that there will be compliance with the new minimum wage, stressing that the extensive negotiations and consensus-building from early February to July involved all relevant stakeholders.
