By Alphonsus Nweze
Even with many states in the country still owing their workers several months arrears of salary, the Human Right, Liberty Access and Peace Defenders’ Foundation, ( HURIDE) has called for the upward review of the current N30,000 minimum wage.
The Delta and Edo State chapters of HURIDE in a joint press conference in Asaba, Delta State capital made the demand recently.
Speaking at the Conference, Comrade Anthony Asakitikpi, South South Zonal Chairman of HURIDE asked the Federal Government, State Governments, the National Assembly to urgently initiate a process to review the current minimum wage.
He said this has become imperative because the current one has been overtaken by hyper inflation and hgh cost of goods and services in the country, with attendant suffering by the citizens.
Asakitikpi who was joined in the conference by the Edo State chapter Chairman, Ojoh Omoruyi Chuks, Delta State secretary, Anakor, Udechukwu Kelvin, lamented that the current minimum wage cannot put food on the table of an average Ngerian worker.
He said the current wage in the country is nothing but perpetual modern slavery, demoralising and counter-productive to effective operation of civil service, especially with the current poor state of the economy.
He said it is in this current N30, 000 minimum wage that an average Nigerian worker is being subjected to pay rent, transportation, feed his family, pay children’s school fees and do other sundry expenses.
The South South Chairman of HURIDE said while workers were groaning under abject poverty and untold hardship, those they elected and appointed to represent them were carting away their commonwealth in millions and billions of naira at the expense of the NIgerian workers.
He decried the lingering strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), and other unions threatening to embark on strike because of the inability of governments; Federal and State to meet up with their obligations.
He called on the Federal and State Governments to set up a body that will commence immediate negotiation for a new minimum wage for Nigerian workers.
“Some states in the country are yet to pay the current N30, 000 minimum wage in the country,” he regretted.
