Minimum Wage Decisions Should Be Made by States, Says Doyin Okupe

Doyin Okupe, a former presidential spokesman, has said state governors should decide the new minimum wage they can pay to workers.

Okupe faulted the National Minimum Wage Act which mandates governors to pay a uniform minimum wage to the workers in their various states.

Featuring on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday, Okupe said: “We should not make all-encompassing laws, that make it compulsory for all governors in the federation to obey them. They are sub-nationalities on their own.

“I mean for instance, if you pay a minimum wage in Lagos, why should I pay that in Sokoto? Let every governor decide for his own state by his own people that this is what I can afford.”

This is coming when the Federal Government proposed a fresh N62,000, while labour reduced their demand from N494,000 to N250,000.

The demand for an improved wage led to labour declaring an indefinite strike on Monday but was called off on Tuesday.

The industrial action was called off to give room for more negotiations.

Meanwhile, state governors have lamented that they can’t pay N60,000.

They noted that some states can’t pay the current N30,000 minimum wage.