VICE President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Issa Aremu yesterday urged the 36 governors to immediately curb the high level of corruption in governance and comply with the implementation of the approved N18,000 new minimum wage to workers rather than asking the Federal Government to remove subsidy on petroleum before embarking on payment.
Besides, he argued that the call by the Nigeria Governors' Forum (NGF) for immediate removal of subsidy on petroleum products was another belated precondition for the implementation of the legally permissible Minimum Wage Act.
In a statement issued in Kaduna, Aremu pointed out that the recent decision of the governors to tie the payment of the new minimum wage to the removal of petroleum products subsidy, "is sadly taking us back to the discredited era of immediate policy dictatorship of the military."
Aremu added: "This policy dictatorship by the governors is undemocratic, unacceptable and condemnable. The governors, under the aegis of NGF, should face up to the challenge of governance which the new minimum wage poses in their respective states instead of arm-twisting a newly elected president to pursue unpopular policies capable of promoting instant mass disaffection.
"Nigeria is operating a Presidential/Federal system of government. The governors who are demanding for true federalism should stop ganging up in Abuja, pushing for top-down unitarist, self-serving policies.
"To read that the governors are dictating immediate removal of subsidy on petroleum products to the president is one dictatorship
too intolerable. Nigerians only hear the voices of few governors aboutthe plight of their citizens with respect to scandalous shortages of basic products like kerosene.
"NGF has not commented on mass leakages of public funds through self enrichment in the National Assembly (now subject of EFCC trials). The N680 billion allegedly spent on fuel subsidies is certainly nothing compared to N1.3 trillion spent on few political office holders as remuneration".
"What is the position of the governors on these mass leakages of public funds by political office holders? It is sad that the governors have become hyper active in an attempt to undermine the implementation of minimum wage. Governors must stop giving excuses and simply put necessary measures in place to implement the Minimum wage Act in their respective states to avoid unnecessary industrial mass crisis".
The Guardian