Ahead of the presidential and National Assembly elections scheduled for 25th February, 2023, the senatorial candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for Kwara Central, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, has vowed to advance pro-workers policies in the National Assembly, if given the mandate in the forthcoming polls.
This is just as the senatorial candidate urged members of the Organized Labour to show keen interest in the choice of the leaders they elect during the general elections.
Abdullahi, a former Minister of Youth and Sports Development, spoke at the interactive session with the Joint Labour Congress held at the state Secretariat of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) in Ilorin, the Kwara state capital.
The erstwhile minister said the Organized Labour has ample time to determine credible leaders now rather than waiting endlessly for salary increase negotiation after the elections.
He regretted that the current state of the economy has shown that the take-home pay of Nigerian workers is grossly insufficient to cater for their needs.
The PDP senatorial flag-bearer urged the Organized Labour to rally round candidates on the platform of his party to help find solutions to the problems in the country.
‘Every government operates by policy. But the question is whether that policy will help the people or will punish the people.
‘Each year, labour talks about salary increase; an increase in salary that will go with promotion and all the dynamics of everything that has to do with promotion of workers.
‘That when you promote a worker, this is the number of years that it should take to move from one cadre to another; and when you move from one cadre to another, this is the kind of benefit that should go with it.
‘Where Nigerians have found themselves in this country is such that even if one is earning more than four times what minimum wage is today, it amounts to little or nothing as five hundred thousand naira is behaving like fifty thousand naira.
‘That didn’t happen by accident. There is a reason and there are reasons why it is like that. What was the exchange rate of naira to the dollar when we left government in 2015? What is the exchange rate of dollar today? These are the factors that determine whether your naira has value or not,’ he declared.
The former Minister and senatorial candidate, therefore, called on the government to make policies that actually strengthen the naira in a way that makes it possible for the citizenry to get the benefit of the money that they have otherwise it is meaningless.
Also speaking, the PDP House of Representatives candidate for Asa/ Ilorin West Federal Constituency, Alhaji Ibrahim Ajia, said the cost of living should determine the minimum wage for workers and not in figures.
He also canvassed support for the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
Ajia, a renowned security expert, promised to propose a bill that would strengthen internal security, if elected as a member of the Green Chamber of the National Assembly.
In his remarks at the interactive session, the state NLC Chairman, Comrade Aliyu Issa Ore, said the Organized Labour is desirous of a developed Kwara state that would bring relief to the citizenry.
Ore, who spoke through the State Congress vice-chairman, Comrade Saheed Muritala, bemoaned the mass exodus of medical and health workers, arising from unattractive take-home pay and called for swift government action to mitigate the challenge.
