A legal practitioner, Mr Monday Gilbert has said that the N70,000 minimum wage approved by President Bola Tinubu, is insufficient for the Nigerian workers to survive.
Gilbert, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Osun, said that with the present economic situation in the country, the new minimum wage was grossly inadequate.
According to him, the minimum wage is not commensurate with the prices of food items in the market today. “For me, the N70,000 minimum wage is too meagre in the face of the present economic situation in the country.
”A bag of rice is now around N80,000, fuel pump price in some area is N800, a module of beans is now N450, among others. How can workers now survive with N70,000 minimum wage?.
“In reality, N70,000 cannot feed a single man for a month not to talk of family of four and this is aside electricity, transportation, education and other expenses,” he said.
Also, Dr Taiwo Arobadi, the Chairman of Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, noted that with the labour struggle, “it is a pity that they eventually settled for N700,000 as new minimum wage.”
Arobadi, however, said that workers had no choice than to accept the new minimum wage. He appealed to the government to do everything possible to keep the current inflation in check for the sake of the masses.
NAN reports that President Tinubu, in a meeting with organised labour in Abuja, approved N70,000 as the new national minimum wage. (NAN)
