The former Commissioner for Science and Technology in Zamfara Ahmad Abubakar Maradun has described as unjustifiable the decisions of the National Assembly to peg a national minimum wage for states in Nigeria since states have their unique socio-economic peculiarities.
Maradun who stated this in a reaction to the recent threat to shut down Zamfara state by the national leadership of the NLC over non implementation of N30,000 minimum wages said, labour should be more realistic in terms of enforcing states in Nigeria to implement the minimum wage, especially where they knew there are visible economic constraints in the state.
He said with the number of workforce in Zamfara couple with the shortfalls in the revenue from the federation accounts and low IGR performance of the state, implementing the N30,000 minimum wage in Zamfara may not be possible.
“if Zamfara NLC is ready to accept the reality they knew the capacity of the state and visa-vie they have all the statistics and data of what is coming into the state how much the state is allocating for salary, debt servicing and other statutory payments. The biggest concern is the number of the workforce, which the labor union knew very well is not a clear reflection of the reality of the genuine workers in the state”.
Maradun who cautioned the Labour union to avoid buying the political impression that they were politically sponsored especially when one considered the relationship between the NLC and Labour Party where Peter Obi is the flag bearer insisted that the NLC shall enter into genuine negotiation with the state so that what it can afford can be offered to them, and they should genuinely rest the case.
He said ‘’if the labor insisted that the minimum wage must be implemented the government of Zamfara state can decide to succumb, but later it can decline because it is not real, and it cannot be sustained”
“World over salary increment is influenced by level of staff productivity and contribution to changing the narrative in terms of earning by the organization not because of minimum wage law”.
