The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in the Southeast Zone of the country on Thursday set the minimum wage for employees within the South-East Geopolitical Zone at N540,000 per month.
The Enugu State Chairman of the NLC, Fabian Nwigbo, voiced the collective sentiment of the entire zone, emphasizing the imperative of retaining the minimum wage within the exclusive list.
Furthermore, Nwigbo advocated for stringent consequences, suggesting that any state governor or local government area chairmen failing to uphold the new wage, once ratified, should face impeachment proceedings.
Meanwhile, the Enugu State Trade Union Congress chairman, Ben Asogwa, who also spoke on behalf of the affiliating unions, said that the new minimum wage was long overdue and called for minimum wages to be reviewed every two years as five years was too long a time. He, however, set the minimum wage at N447,000.
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According to Asogwa, ” We have long waited for this day to come because of the suffering in the land. I am not also happy that none of the state governors from the southeast is here today, not even the Chairman, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo. It is appalling.”
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Medical Association, NMA, represented by its state secretary, Dr. Sunny Okafor, called for a consequential adjustment of the wage to avoid a repeat of the 2019 crisis resulting from the payment of arrears of minimum wage.
The public hearing lasted for about two hours as various bodies submitted their memoranda ahead of time.
