Minimum wage: Buhari meets with governors

Some governors, National Daily gathered, are currently meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja over the N30, 000 minimum wage issue which has been generating controversy in recent times.

Among those meeting with the president are the governors of Lagos, Plateau, and Bauchi, Akwa Ibom and Ebonyi President Muhammadu Buhari and some state governors are currently meeting in his office at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

The chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), Governor Abdul’aziz Yari, the minister of labour and employment, Chris Ngige, are also among the attendees.

Recall that the Nigeria Governors’ Forum said it would re-strategise and dialogue with President Muhammadu Buhari on the issues associated with the proposed N30, 000 minimum wage.

To drive the process, the forum constituted a committee to meet the president to work out a formula to quickly resolve the issues. Chairman of the forum and Governor of Zamfara, Alhaji Abdul’aziz Yari, told newsmen at the end of an emergency meeting of the governors in Abuja that payment of N30,000 wage was impracticable.

Yari, however, said the proposed wage would be paid if labour would agree to downsizing of the workforce across the country “or federal government itself accedes to the review of the national revenue allocation formula”.

Yari alleged that the Tripartite Committee on the minimum wage did not include governors’ submission of N22, 500 in its proposal to Buhari “because it said that the governors’ decision came late”.

He said: “Situation where our report was not taken or considered by the tripartite committee in the presentation to the president, then, I don’t know how the committee wants us to work,” he said.