SEVENTEEN state governors have raised committees to implement the N70,000 new minimum wage for workers across the country.
The 17 states which set up the implementation committees are Ogun, Ekiti, Sokoto, Kebbi, Osun, Enugu, Borno, Zamfara, Kogi, Kwara, Gombe, Kano, Taraba, Delta, Rivers, Jigawa and Abia.
The development is happening as the Federal Government commenced payment of the new minimum wage to its 1.2 million workers last Thursday.
The Accountant General of the Federation, Oluwatoyin Madein, in a memo to the Budget Office of the Federation, noted that the civil servants would be paid the minimum wage with effect from September.
On the heels of this, Edo, Lagos, Adamawa states have also commenced payment of the new salary as Anambra pledged to implement the minimum wage in October.
The Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress in Adamawa state, Emmanuel Fashe, confirmed that Governor Ahmadu Fintiri started paying the new minimum wage in August ahead of the Federal Government and other states.
Fashe who spoke to this newspaper on Sunday, said that in less than three weeks after President Bola Tinubu signed the new minimum wage bill into law in July, the Adamawa state government commenced payment in August.
He said the state workers got their August salaries but the local government workers received their new minimum wage in September.
Fashe, who blamed the delayed council workers’ salaries payment on the new minimum wage, said that the 2019 consequential adjustment template had to be used to calculate the new wage percentages, and the Accountant General’s office had to update the August payroll.
During the 2024 May Day celebration, the governor had promised to pay any amount the Federal Government agreed with the NLC.
In Anambra, Governor Chukwuma Soludo disclosed that the state will commence the payment of the N70,000 minimum wage from October 2024.
Soludo announced this at the Prof. Dora Akunyili Women’s Development Centre in Awka, on Thursday, while meeting with all principals and head teachers in public primary and secondary schools across the state.
He said, “From next month, we hope to start paying the new minimum wage of N70,000. Also, from next week, a free education policy will be available to senior students in all public schools in Anambra. Students in senior classes who have already paid their N5,000 fees for this term should be refunded and we promise to do more in human development.
But speaking with this newspaper, a senior NLC official said the value of the new minimum wage had been eroded, noting that the implementation of the new salary structure should not be romanticised.
“The truth is this, we should not be romanticizing people who are lawbreakers. People who are lawbreakers should not be romanticised. If the Federal Government says they want to start paying, I don’t think it is something that should be celebrated. What is it that they want to start paying? N70,000 that has already been eroded by the actions and policies of the government?
“If you look at the price of PMS (petrol) from the time the minimum wage was signed into law and now, you could see that you could see the deliberate actions of the government to erode the minimum wage.
“A bag of rice now is almost N93,000 or thereabouts. And then it means we are saying we have a minimum wage that cannot buy a bag of rice is a shameful minimum wage. So it’s a starvation wage,” he stated.
He queried the decision of the government to backdate the new wage implementation to July instead of May.
“The 2019 Minimum Wage Act states the new wage takes effect when the old one expires. If payments start in July, shouldn’t Nigerians question why?
“Why do you want to start paying July when the 2019 Minimum Wage Act stipulates that the new minimum wage will take effect from the day that one expires,” he questioned.
The fact is clear that the 2024 National Minimum Wage Act amended only two clauses in the old Minimum Wage Act. State governors that say they can’t pay their state workers the new minimum wage of N70,000 should go and hide their faces, and their heads in shame because any state governor that opens his mouth and says they can’t pay, that state governor is saying, I want to break the law. That state governor is saying, I want to be lawless. That state governor is saying, I want to disobey the law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,’’ the official further argued.