Kogi workers protest, demand for new minimum wage

MEMBERS of the organised labour in Kogi State on Tuesday joined their colleagues across the country to stage a protest over their demand for a new minimum wage.

The protest started at about 9 am saw the workers led by the state chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Onuh Edoka, marching through the town to the state secretariat.

The peaceful protest, which started with a procession from the secretariat of the NLC on Ganaja village road involved the workers drawn from the civil and public services.

Addressing the protesters, Edoka warned that the Nigerian workers are not slaves, and would resist the attempt by those in authority to deny them of a new minimum wage.

The State NLC Chairman lamented and rejected the N20,000 offer by the federal government, warned that any attempt not to pay N30,000 minimum wage to workers would be met with stiff resistance.

The NLC chairman said: ”Enough is enough,” as he warned the federal government not to test the will of Nigerian workers, as N20, 000 minimum wage was not enough to pay children’s school fees, medical bills, and take the Nigerian worker home.”

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The State NLC Chairman said workers rejected the position of the Nigerian Governors Forum that the states could not pay the new minimum wage, describing their N20,000 offer as ” peanuts, wickedness and inhuman.”

Edoka argued that the new minimum wage was feasible if political office holders would cut down on frivolities, prioritise their expenditures, with governors cutting down on their jamboree, wardrobe allowance and humongous amount spent on the State assemblies to impeach their deputies and Speakers.

The chairman, who warned that the N30,000 minimum wage demanded by workers should not be made a promise cancelled, asked why the promise by the present administration to increase workers wage is now becoming a difficult issue.