PMB Meets With 36 State Governors Over Minimum Wage

Lukman Amusa

President Muhammdu  Buhari on Friday met behind closed doors with 36 state governors on the lingering disagreement between them and organised labour on the proposed N30,000 national minimum wage.

The premier newspaper   noticed  that some of the governors were represented by their deputy governors at the meeting which lasted for about 30 minutes.

President Buhari, had on Nov.19, held similar meeting with representatives of Nigerian Governors Forum at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, where the same issue of national minimum wage was deliberated upon.

Representatives of the Governors forum, who met with the president over the issue then, included governors of Zamfara, Lagos, Kaduna and Enugu, while the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige was also in attendance.

The Amal Pepple Tripartite Committee on the Review of National Minimum Wage, had on Nov. 6, submitted its report to President Buhari where it recommended N30,000 as the new national minimum wage.

While receiving the report, the president expressed his commitment to ensuring the implementation of a new national minimum wage and pledged to transmit an Executive Bill (on National Minimum Wage) to the National Assembly for its passage within the shortest possible time.

However, the 36 state governors had since expressed reservation over the proposed N30,000 new minimum wage by the Amal Pepple committee, saying the state governments were not in a stable financial position to pay the new minimum wage.

The Chairman of the Governors’ forum and Governor of Zamfara, Alhaji Abdul’aziz Yari, had on Nov. 15, told newsmen at the end of an emergency meeting of the governors in Abuja that payment of N30, 000 wage was not practicable.