NLC President, Joe Ajaero, declared the position of the union while speaking on the sidelines of the 67th Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association Annual General Meeting in Lagos.According to the NLC president, the International Labour Organisation recognises wage as a national law, saying it is not for the sub-nationals.  The labour leader maintained that every country has their minimum wage and some states are paying higher than the basic minimum wage, and that is the position of the law anywhere.

However,  he said,  some people instigated by the governors were saying they would not be able to pay N60,000 even when their members were in the meeting with labour, saying this was being done in bad fate adding that the labour movement will not accept “slave wages”.

Ajaero further argued that an average family of six live within N60,000 in a month and still go to work.

He submitted that NLC had proposed many options apart from the amount of the minimum wage, which if the government had addressed long before the removal of oil subsidies would have saved Nigeria from the current challenges.Meanwhile, the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives,  Kingsley Chinda, said there is a proposal before the National Assembly Committees on Constitutional Review to move the minimum wage from the exclusive list to the concurrent legislative list.

The minority leader’s clarification came against the backdrop of Ajaero’s position that the parliament had begun moves to decentralise minimum wage to enable states fix what is convenient for them to pay.Speaking  in Abuja  Chinda stated that there were different opinions and views on whether minimum wage issues should be on concurrent or exclusive list, noting that there is a proposal to move it to concurrent list where  states could  legislate on labour matters.