Lagos – As Nigeria joins other nations world over to celebrate Workers Day, the organised labour says the nation’s workers are yet to benefit from the wealth of the nation and are therefore agitating higher pay.
The workers say while the nation’s wealth is increasing poverty among the working class has continued to increase.
The workers are angry at a legislator who tried to smuggle into the House of Representative a bill to remove the issue of national minimum wage from the Exclusive Legislative List after the constitutional issue had been resolved in 2014 by the National Assembly.
The organised labour is therefore, calling on the constituency of the legislator to recall him from the National Assembly.
At a lecture jointly organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Abuja to usher in this year’s May Day celebration, the leaders of the two unions painted a sad picture of the workers plight.
Comrade Ayuba Wabara, NLC president, said the labour creates wealth and the wealth has increased but the Nigerian workers have not benefitted from the wealth of the nation they create.
"Poverty among working class has continued to increase. We are just a pool of poorer workers and therefore, I think this year’s May Day calls for us to dedicate ourselves both as leader and members to our collective struggle to continue to agitate for what is right to our society,’’ Wabara said.
He blamed insecurity problems in Nigeria on continued poverty in the land stating that there was no way insecurity can be addressed without addressing the twin issues of poverty and unemployment.
The TUC president, Comrade Bobboi Kaigama lamented the poor working and general condition of Nigerian workers.
"Every economic indicator pointed to the fact that Nigerian workers can no longer survive on a meagre N18,000 minimum wage. The NLC recently demanded an upward review of the minimum wage to N56,000 for Nigerian workers.
As if agreeing with the TUC President, the Minister of Labour and Employment Senator Chris Ngige, commended them for their resilience in the face of the current economic challenges facing the country.
In his message on the occasion, the minister said the government is aware of the economic challenges facing Nigerian workers in the public, the private and informal sector of the economy and solicited their continued support to the Change Agenda of the administration, especially in the fight against corruption.
In a keynote address, Prof. Olutoye Olorode said recession in Nigeria had become the excuse for imposition of further and highly disproportionate economic burden on the working people and other oppressed classes worldwide.
He said that the problem was essentially a product of the domination of Nigeria by global capitalism with its ideology of the rule of market forces, liberalisation and international finance institutions.