By Jude Michael Michael
Civil servants in Anambra State, say the N70, 000 minimum wage agreement between the Federal Government and the leadership of the organized labour will worsen the already overwhelming insecurity and economic situation in Nigeria.
A cross-section of civil servants who spoke with our reporter, who visited both the federal and the state secretariats in Awka to ascertain the feelings of the workers on the new national minimum wage, expressed displeasure over the N70, 000 agreed minimum wage.
One of them, Hon Azuka Oko, wondered what an average worker with children would use N70, 000 for.
Hon Oko said whatever decision the government and the leaders had taken was wrong as far as he was concerned.
‘For the situation this country is in now, a minimum wage we should be talking of should be not be less than N250,000 or N300,000 if you really want the workers to be honest and work with sincerity,’ Oko said, expressing disappointment on the part of the leadership of the organized labour.
‘The N250, 000 was what we stood for; I don’t know how they (labour leaders) came about this N70, 000.
‘Though that’s the system in the country; probably they were bought up. That’s the problem in this country; as far as you are satisfied, you don’t care about others, especially the downtrodden.
‘With the N70, 000 as a salary, crime will continue to increase in this country. Now, can a security man or a driver, who is going to get that direct N70, 000, train his children in school? Without doubt, these children are going to end up being hoodlums.
‘So, let the government know that they are breeding criminals,’ Oko said.
Also, Mr Patrick Emmanuel was of the opinion that N70, 000 minimum wage was meaningless to him, saying it was better the country went back to where it was before the emergence of the Ahmed Tinubu administration.
He feared that the N70, 000 minimum wage would worsen the already bad economic situation in the country.
‘I prefer we go back to where we were economically (before the new administration). This is because once we start collecting the N70, 000, the price of a bag of rice which is over N80, 000 now, will go move up to N300, 000. So, the N70, 000 is meaningless to me,’ Emmanuel said.
To Mr Onu and Ms Jacinta Madu, the N70, 000 minimum wage was a half bread, which, they said, was better than none, but wished the government would have been magnanimous to raise it up to N120, 000, considering the economic realities of the time.
However, another civil servant, Mr Uche Okafor, appealed to the state governors, especially Governor Chukwuma Soludo, to be magnanimous enough to pay the state workers up to N70, 000, because, according to him, everybody went to the same markets.
