CITIZENS FREE SERVICE FORUM’ CONDEMNS MINIMUM WAGE REMOVAL FROM EXCLUSIVE TO CONCURRENT LEGISLATIVE LIST
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‘CITIZENS FREE SERVICE FORUM’ CONDEMNS MINIMUM WAGE REMOVAL FROM EXCLUSIVE TO CONCURRENT LEGISLATIVE LIST
***As group describes move as anti-democratic and display of insensitivity
The speculation that the national minimum wage will be removed from the exclusive list of the 1999 constitution of Nigeria has been described as anti democratic expedition.
This condemnation was contained in a press release issued by the Executive secretary of the citizens free service forum Comrade Sanni Baba .
The citizen free service forum fumed over the insensitive move by the National Assembly to manipulate the status as contained in the constitution which asserted the inclusion of minimum wage in the exclusive list of the 1999 constitution of Nigeria as amended.
The press release read in parts:
The attention of the Citizens Free Service Forum (CFSF) has been drawn to speculations suggesting fresh moves by the National Assembly through its Joint Committee on the Judiciary to remove the National Minimum Wage from the Exclusive Legislative List and transfer same to the Concurrent Legislative List of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The specific section of the constitution targeted is Schedule 1, Item 34 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) which deals with the following: Trade Unions; Industrial Relations; Conditions, Safety and Welfare of Labour; Industrial Disputes; National Minimum Wage for the Federation or any part thereof; and Industrial Arbitration.
We condemn this crude, coarse, cowardly, underhand, insensitive and slavish gesture from those who were voted into office with a mandate to make laws for the good and welfare of workers and the broader citizenry of Nigeria.
This current move is not the first time the National Assembly is embarking on such a public nauseating venture. In the life of the 9th Assembly, Honourable Garba Datti Mohammed representing Sabon Gari Federal Constituency of Kaduna State at the behest of a few State Governors including then Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai sponsored a private member bill seeking the transfer of labour matters particularly the national minimum wage from the exclusive list to the concurrent list of the constitution.
On Tuesday, 23rd February 2021, the lower chambers of the National Assembly experienced an amazing and unprecedented legislative zest in legislative bills consideration as the anti-people national minimum wage bill was rushed through the first and second readings.
The oppressive bill was on its way to being gaveled into law when Nigerian workers and people rose as one and stormed the National Assembly demanding its recall and death.
Well, we thought it died. Now, we know it was only anaesthetized but well and kicking in the hearts of opportunists who mislabel themselves the representatives of the people. While the 10th National Assembly enjoys expanding the contours of a robust members’ palate exemplified in the allocation of surplus perks including brand new wonders-on-wheels to their already over-padded remuneration packages, they seem to have acquired another debilitating appetite – to consume workers and the masses.
This is what this latest legislative misallocation to dislocate the national minimum wage from the exclusive list is all about. Their plan is to kill any sense of a national minimum wage and offer state governors a legal basis to pay workers peanuts thus making official then covert now overt endeavour to create a slave society out of the working people of Nigeria.
We wish to remind these adventurers in misrepresentation that the world of work and Labour is regulated by international labour standards as set by the member states of the International Labour Organization (ILO).
The Minimum Wage Fixing Machinery Convention 26 is one of the ILO Labour Standards adopted in 1928 and which Nigeria ratified on 16th June 1961. The foregoing situates the place of a national minimum wage in the exclusive list of Nigeria’s constitution as not being wishful thinking, nor an after-thought nor an act of charity. It was an aftermath of workers’ struggle and done in compliance with international labour standards which Nigeria as a sovereign member state of the ILO had ratified and pledged to respect and always execute.
It is deeply harrowing and traumatizing to imagine that the real value of the national minimum wage by historical foreign exchange comparison and naira devaluation had plummeted from N300,000 in 1981 to the current N30,000. This means that a Nigerian worker who entered service in 1981 had been earning backwards into poverty in geometric proportions from then till now.
It is exhaustively difficult to find a word to describe this proletariat consumption. To think that some ultra-insular lawmakers are cooking the replacement of whatever remains of the vestige of earned wages in Nigeria with outright slave wages does not only overthrow our humanity but also deconstructs society itself, mocks our civilization, cripples our sovereignty and returns us to Hobbesian existence where life is short, nasty and brutish!
Asides concerns for workers’ welfare and the general overflow of decent wages on the wellbeing of the wider society, there are also genuine apprehension on the chaos the transfer of the national minimum wage from the exclusive list to the concurrent list portends for businesses and investors.
This means that investors and business owners would need to deal with thirty seven different sets of labour laws and minimum wage structures across the thirty six states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
There is certainly no deadlier death knell for the Nigerian economy and social fabrics than the suggestion and or recommendation to transfer the national minimum wage from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent Legislative List. It is simply what it is – a foolhardy invitation to an unprecedented industrial anarchy of unimaginable proportions.
It is on the basis of the foregoing compelling persuasion that we demand that the National Assembly, through its Joint Committee on the Judiciary cease and desist from further action on the proposed bill to remove the national minimum wage and related labour matters from Schedule 1, Item 34 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to the Concurrent Legislative List. A quick action on this would save Nigeria needless upheaval.
A stitch in time certainly saves nine!
Comrade Sani Baba
Executive Secretary
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