Last week, the Nigerian Governors Forum, NGF, rose from a meeting to announce that they can no longer pay the N18, 000 National Minimum Wage that was signed into law in March 2011, by President Goodluck Jonathan. The governors gave as reason for their inability to continue to meet their obligations to the Nigerian working people, the poor state of the Nigerian economy. Specifically, the governors pointed out that the wages burden was lighter when crude oil sold at $126 as against the current $41 per barrel.

"The situation is no longer the same when we were asked to pay N18, 000 minimum wage, when oil price was $126 (per barrel) and we continued paying N18, 000 minimum wage when oil price is $41, while the source of government expenditure is from oil, and we have not seen prospects in the oil industry in the near future," they said.

Predictably, the Nigerian working people have sharply reacted to the provocative intention. Leaders of the NLC and the TUC warned that if the governors wanted working people to shut down the country, because of their hare-brained idea, they would gladly do so. They added that: "The governors should not think that the Nigerian workers do not have the capacity to retrench them".

Capacity to retrench Minimum wage

Responding to the oil price red herring raised by the Nigerian Governors Forum, NLC President AyubaWabba pointed out that: "When there was excess crude money, the workers did not benefit and so we cannot bear the brunt". Most significantly, former NLC President and current Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, dissociated himself from the NGF.

Speaking at the Labour House in Abuja last Friday, Oshiomhole said the minimum wage was not imposed on government, rather, it was a product of an agreement with labour. And just in case the governors suffered a self-inflicted amnesia, he reminded them that: "Democracy doesn’t have to run at the convenience of governors, ministers and presidents…the issue in the economy hasn’t got to do with minimum wage.

I have also reminded my colleagues that the minimum wage was not imposed, it was negotiated and state governments agreed to it, the president signed it and it was not under duress, there was no strike to compel the then president to sign it, he signed it voluntarily".

So disgusted was a broad section of Nigerians on the NGF's intention, that former Vice Chancellor, Professor Ango Abdullahi, angrily suggested that whichever governor was not able to pay the minimum wage should resign to pave way for those who can, in the interest of the Nigerian worker. He added that governors who could take huge sums as security vote, cannot then state that they won't pay N18, 000 minimum wage. "If certain political appointees of the governors take home N1 million monthly, how can the same governors not be able to pay N18, 000 to each worker...? asked Prof. Abdullahi.

In truth, I think the governors still haven't understood the depth of changes taking place in Nigeria today. The Nigerian working people will NEVER allow their minimum wage that cannot even really take them home, to become the terrain of sacrifice in these difficult times, and for very good reason.

The assumption that the burden of sacrifices must be placed upon the working people and the poor, while protecting their own personal and class comforts, will not fly. Governors and the political elite should make the greatest sacrifices today. They should give up at least 50% of their wages and allowances. Same for emoluments paid hundreds of political appointees that consume a huge part of the recurrent expenditure of states.

They should also prune down the number of commissioners; special advisers; special assistants and other hangers-on. It was not too long ago, that Isa Yuguda in Bauchi and Murtala Nyako in Adamawa, appointed hundreds of special assistants! Similarly, there is the need to cancel the immoral pensions that governors have awarded themselves. These pensions are paid to individuals like Bukola Saraki in Kwara; Bola Tinubu in Lagos and Godswill Akpabio in Akwa Ibom, for example. In many instances, these pensions are even the first lines of expenditure for states. How can these pensions be justified? These individuals made huge sums of money from and through their states in the eight years that they ruled. And for example, a poor Kwara State will continue to pay Bukola Saraki and his family millions of naira annually, for as long as he lives. The same chap is now in Senate, drawing the salary of Senate President. If he survives his problem at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, then he will add a Senate pension to his Kwara State pension!

This is the class injustice that the Nigerian Governors Forum is blinded to! They see the huge sums they award to themselves and the illegal sums many cream off their states as normal. That process of personal and class enrichment to the detriment of Nigeria's economic wellbeing and social peace should be discontinued.

But the Nigerian working class must NEVER make a sacrifice of losing the pittance they are paid as a National Minimum Wage. Nigerian governors must brace themselves up for the Mother of All National Strikes if they attempt to stop paying the N18, 000 National Minimum Wage!