MY CLEANER MAKES OVER N60,000, HOW CAN MINIMUM WAGE BE 30,OOO, ACCORDING TO OSHIOMHOLE

Tunji Wusu –

Adams Oshiomhole, a senator from Edo North, has referred to the N30,000 monthly minimum salary as a “criminal wage.”

This was said by Oshiomhole in an interview with Sunday Politics on Channels Television.

The previous governor of Edo State said that his maid was paid at least N60,000.

“That is the least I thought I could pay,” he added, “if I have chosen to hire a cleaner and chosen not to clean the house by myself.”

The “minimum wage” is actually a criminal wage. What does it mean to trade N30,000 for N800 or N700 to the dollar?

“So, even in the public service, the value of that minimum wage when it was N125 — when it was first introduced under, I believe, (Shehu) Shagari’s government — is about two or three times the value today.”

According to Oshiomole, the typical responsible employee in the private sector is a better employee than one working for the federal or state governments.

I can tell you how much I’ve chosen to pay my cleaner, he remarked. My housekeeper is only an elementary school student; I doubt if she even has a diploma. However, she is competent enough to clean the house.

“I discovered that I was unable to give her anything less than N60,000, or even N60,000. Concerning my conscience. I’m attempting to calculate how much she must spend on a home. She revealed to me that she has four kids.

“I cannot question why she should have four children, but I’m trying to imagine how she has to care for those children.”

The N30,000 minimum salary, according to Oshiomole, won’t necessarily “deliver a comfortable living standard, but what you call irreducible minimum for her to survive.”

“If I do that to my cleaner, I have to do a little more to my driver because he requires some training and sometimes, even retraining, and my security is in his hands,” he continued.