Former vice president of Nigeria and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has kicked against the ₦30,000 minimum wage insisting that it was no longer sufficient for an average Nigerian worker.
In a statement to felicitate with Nigerian workers on the occasion of the International Workers Day celebrated on the 1st of May, Atiku asked them not to despair but be hopeful.
“In Nigeria of today, the minimum wage of N30,000 cannot buy a full bag of rice, let alone cloth or pay for a worker’s many utility bills. Hyperinflation in all sectors of our nation has constituted serious socio-economic strangulation to the average Nigerian worker, who’s now poorer than in 2015 when APC came to power,” Atiku said.
Atiku advised workers to see the 2023 Worker’s Day as a moment for “sober reflection and stock-taking given the myriad of socio-economic tribulations facing them in the last eight years.”
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The former vice-president said the lives and welfare of workers and their families have been reduced to the “abyss of mere existence due to the litany of policy errors by the ruling APC government which created insecurity in all facets of workers’ lives — food, shelter, health, wealth and education.”
Despite the precarious situation, Atiku enjoined the workers not to despair and cowed, but to keep their heads above water and stay afloat, be resilient and hopeful; for the sake of the younger generation and the country’s future.
“In Nigeria of today, the minimum wage of N30,000 cannot buy a full bag of rice, let alone cloth or pay for a worker’s many utility bills. In fact, hyperinflation in all sectors of our nation has constituted serious socio-economic strangulation to the average Nigerian worker, who’s now poorer than 2015 when APC came to power.”
Atiku extolled the virtues of hard work, perseverance and endurance of the working people in the country.
“It is unimaginable how a government could be so heartless to treat its own bonafide citizens like medieval slaves in colonial plantations. Where are the so-called ‘dividends of democracy’? Labourers do deserve commensurate wages that meet pervading economic conditions of the time. Alas, Nigerian workers now receive wages that can no longer take them home or bring them back to the office!” he lamented.
The former vice president reminded the workers to stand together, with him, to legally reclaim their stolen mandate at the February 25 presidential polls.