- Ajaero said what Nigerian workers currently earn as minimum wage is a starvation wage.
- He clarified that the zonal meetings regarding the minimum wage were intended to gather the opinions of Nigerians.
Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi state has commended President Bola Tinubu over the setting up of the Tripartite Committee on National Minimum Wage.
Bala Mohammed who was in Yola on Thursday, March 7, for the north-east zonal public hearing of the committee, said the committee is a bold step towards addressing the nation’s wage policy need.
“We praise Tinubu for the courage to set up this committee. Not many will accept this as a task that must be done,” the Bauchi state governor said at the event in the Banquet Hall of the Government House Yola.
He said mass suffering is a clear reality and that a realistic minimum wage is a vital way to minimise it.
The zonal meeting in Yola, attended by delegates from the six states of the north-east, was chaired by the president of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Joe Ajaero.
In his opening address, Ajaero said what Nigerian workers currently earn as minimum wage is a starvation wage.
“What they call minimum wage is now starvation wage”, he asserted, adding that an average worker spends all his minimum wage on transportation alone.
He clarified that the zonal meetings regarding the minimum wage were intended to gather the opinions of Nigerians.
However, he cautioned that alongside the public hearings, there should also be what he termed ‘market hearings’, wherein the prices of goods in the market must be considered in determining the accepted national minimum wage.