By Chinedu Echianu
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has blamed corruption and successive governments’ failure to prioritise workers’ welfare for the rising poverty level in the country, insisting that wages are not responsible for Nigeria’s economic challenges.
Deputy General Secretary of the NLC, Benson Upah, stated this in an interview with newsmen while defending organised labour’s position ahead of the next national minimum wage negotiations.
According to Upah, governments at all levels have failed to appreciate that investing in workers is essential to economic growth, arguing that treating the workforce as a burden rather than an asset has contributed to widespread poverty.
“It is a tragedy that government does not think that poverty is a threat.
It is equally tragic that government sees its workforce as a disposable entity and sometimes even as an irritant.
That is where they miss the point because the greatest asset of any nation is its workforce,” he said.
He argued that an economically vulnerable workforce inevitably weakens the wider economy because workers drive consumption and productivity.
“Workers are the ones who buy goods and services. Once they are unable to purchase, businesses begin to decline.
Workers are the ones who turn the wheel of wealth.
When they lack the mental, physical and psychological capacity to work because of economic hardship, productivity suffers,” Upah said.
The labour leader dismissed the notion that workers’ wages constitute a burden on the economy, maintaining that corruption and poor management of public resources remain Nigeria’s greatest economic challenges.
“Wages are not the problem of the economy. The problems of the economy include corruption, not wages,”
he said, adding that governments should instead scrutinise wasteful spending and questionable contract awards.
Upah also criticised state governments that delayed implementing the current ₦70,000 national minimum wage, describing them as lacking commitment to workers’ welfare.
He, however, noted that virtually all the 36 state governments have now implemented the wage after initial disagreements over consequential salary adjustments.
“The states fell into three categories. There were reluctant implementers, those who required little persuasion, and those that went beyond the ₦70,000 benchmark because they were genuinely concerned about workers’ welfare,” he said.
According to him, payment of the national minimum wage is a statutory obligation designed to protect workers from extreme poverty and should never be treated as an act of generosity.
“The national minimum wage is a necessity, not a favour. Its purpose is to protect vulnerable workers from falling into the vicious cycle of poverty and to ensure that no worker earns below the nationally prescribed minimum,” he stated.
Ahead of fresh minimum wage negotiations, Upah disclosed that organised labour had informally rejected suggestions that the new minimum wage could be fixed at ₦100,000.
He revealed that the NLC had instead indicated it would be more comfortable with a ₦1 million minimum wage, stressing that the figure reflects current economic realities rather than an arbitrary demand.
According to him, the Federal Government has the financial capacity to pay a significantly higher wage because revenues have increased substantially following the removal of fuel subsidy, exchange rate reforms, tariff increases and higher allocations from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC).
He noted that monthly FAAC distributions have reportedly risen from about ₦700 billion to between ₦2 trillion and ₦3 trillion, while government has also benefited from increased tax collections and higher oil revenues.
“The government has enough resources to pay,” Upah asserted.
He argued that the erosion of workers’ purchasing power through inflation, high food prices and rising energy costs makes a substantial wage review unavoidable.
“We pay international prices for many goods and services because ours is an import-dependent economy.
If we pay what amounts to Washington prices, it is only fair that workers earn something close to Washington wages,” he said.
Upah further maintained that government has a responsibility to ensure that improvements in public revenue translate into better living conditions for citizens.
“The number one responsibility of government is the welfare of its citizenry. It is heresy for government to be stupendously rich while the people remain hideously poor,” he said.
He lamented the increasing number of Nigerians seeking opportunities abroad, contrasting the current situation with earlier decades when citizens of neighbouring countries migrated to Nigeria in search of better economic prospects.
“We make more money now than we did then. Why should life be this difficult? Why should people be this desperate? It is simply because some individuals have continued to steal what belongs to all Nigerians,” he added.
