The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has said governments at all levels must pay salaries commensurate with current realities in the country.
President of the NLC, Comrade Joe Ajaero, said this at the 11th Quadrennial Delegates Conference of the Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria at the weekend in Abuja.
NLC had Thursday presented N709, 000 for consideration as the new national minimum wage at the public hearing for the North Central.
Her counterpart, the TUC, on the other hand presented N447,000 as its proposal for consideration as the new national minimum wage.
The congress president stated that workers have been reduced to beggars because of the economic hardship in the country.
“Food has become so scarce that Nigerians have become scavengers and resorting to raiding food trucks and warehouses for food. If those in government cannot see the danger in what is happening, we see it and must ensure that government fulfills its duties to the people.
“We are increasingly going hungry in our father’s land and cannot continue in this destitution. The greatest unifier and mobiliser of a people is hunger, so it insults common sense when those in government assumes that somebody is sponsoring people who are protesting because of hunger.
“If anybody is arousing the people, it is those in government whose policies have impoverished the people and stripped them of those values that make them human beings.
“The looting of food trucks and warehouse is what you get when this happens. Unless something is done, this may unfortunately escalate. We pray it does not.
“Those who therefore think that they can stop us from this divine mission with their threats and violence should think twice. We cannot be cowed. We cannot surrender our natural mandate to powers and agents of poverty and emasculation. We are not after anybody’s job, but we must insist that the instruments of governance must be used for the greater good of the people and not to wreck their lives,” he said.
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