Moghalu Says Payment Of N18,000 As National Minimum Wage Is ‘Poverty Wage’ For Nigerian Workers

The presidential candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, said that the payment of N18,000 as the national minimum wage is a poverty wage for Nigerian workers.

The presidential candidate while speaking during an interview with Pulse on Monday, November 19, 2018, pointed out that workers deserve more than they’re getting from the government as minimum wage. He said:

“N18,000 is a poverty wage. You can’t be paying people less than $2 a day and you call yourself a government.”

When asked how much he would recommend as national minimum wage, Moghalu proposed around N36,000 but not more than N40,000.

Last week, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) disclosed that it might have to resort to tough measures in order to afford the N30,000 national minimum wage. According to the Governors, they might end up sacking worker in order to afford the new minimum wage. Read the report HERE.

Before the proposed N30,000 was presented to the president by Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), state governors had insisted they could only increase the minimum wage, currently pegged at N18,000, to N22,500.

During the interview with Pulse, Moghalu said the governors can afford to pay workers if they cut down on the excessive cost of running the government for their own comfort.

“They have all the money for security votes. Many of the governors have about 500 special assistants and another several hundred special assistants. Isn’t that money maintaining them? Is that useful expenditure? That’s just money being used to maintain political cronies when people who are poor, civil servants, are not getting a minimum wage.”

Tobias Sylvester

Tobias Sylvester is the news editor for Kanyi Daily News and is based in Lagos. Contact Tobias at editor@kanyidaily.com. Got a confidential tip? Submit it here