“I feel sad when we talk of federal
government giving people grains as if we are giving grains to pigeons…”
The
President of the Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC), Comrade Joe Ajaero, has said
that it is an insult to Nigerians for the Federal Government to provide grains
as a palliative for the food insecurity that has besieged Nigeria in recent
times.
Last week Thursday, President
Tinubu had ordered the immediate release of 102,000 metric tonnes of rice,
maize, millet and garri from government reserves and stores of the rice millers
to the Nigerian market.
In an ARISE News
Interview on Sunday, Ajaero addressed the matter as he said, “I feel sad
when we talk of federal government giving people grains as if we are giving
grains to pigeons and all these other birds. At this time and age in Nigeria,
we are talking of federal government providing how many tonnes of grains to
Nigerians as a measure of stemming the level of hunger and poverty in the
country. I beg to disagree that that is a serious insult to Nigerians I think
that we should think of something else.”
The Comrade also alleged that
the Federal Executive Council meeting has become more of a procurement meeting
than a place where policy issues are resolved.
Ajaero said, “If somebody is
telling us that it is going to start work today and tomorrow, have they kept
the promise? That is the question. Heck no. I think the issue of trust should
be paramount in whatever we do as a government and as a people. If we look at
the end of every federal executive council meeting you will discover that the
federal executive council meeting seems to have transformed into a procurement
committee… not directly on policy issues.
“Even when they had agreements
with organized labor, with Nigerians, such meetings don’t come out with clear
statements on how to implement them, and I am getting worried. So, when
Nigerians are hungry, you give them some bags of grains as a solution, that’s
not what we need at this point in time.”
The NLC president then spoke on
the upcoming minimum wage review, saying that the Labor Union’s demand for
minimum wage may increase due to the constantly depreciating Naira and the high
rate of inflation, saying that a one-million-naira minimum wage may even be
viable.
He said, “This one million
naira may be relevant if the value of the naira continues to depreciate, and we
need to, if the inflation continues to depreciate, if it is not changed.
Because the demand of labor is equally dependent on what is happening in the
society. You will remember that by the time we are contemplating 200,000, the
exchange rate was around 800, 900. As we talk today, the exchange rate is about
1400 or even more. Now those are the issues that determine the demand, and it
is equally affecting the cost of living and we have always said it that our
demands will be based on cost-of-living index.”
He
further said, “Now are we going to get a minimum wage that will not be enough
for transportation even for one week? We have to factor in all these
issues, and that will determine the federal government’s commitment to this
demonstration. It is not just that they want to give us minimum wage, the old
minimum wage will be expiring by April. And ordinarily, the federal government
ought to have set up the community six months before that time so that
negotiation would have commenced, but up till now, the federal government
didn’t do it until they set up, they inaugurated the committee, and the
committee has not sat.
“So, it appears we are going to
work within one month or two to agree on a figure, and I doubt how those ones
are going to. Especially when you look at the people that the federal
government assembled as members of the committee. They looked at some of the
governors that are not even paying the existing minimum wage and even they have
a minister of budget who didn’t implement his minimum wage as a governor. Now,
if you have the people in the government team on the issue of minimum wage,
some of us are not seeing a bright future on the work of this new minimum wage
committee.”
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