Charismatic Catholic priest, Rev Father Ejike Mbaka, has said the proposed N62,000 as new national minimum wage should be generalized to senators, governors, and House of Representatives members.
Mbaka faulted the allowances allocated to lawmakers while Nigerians are suffering of hardship.
After several hours of deliberations by the tripartite committee negotiating the new minimum wage, the Federal Government has offered to pay workers N62,000.
This comes as the organized labour reduced its demands from N494,000 to N250,000 as new minimum wage.
Reacting, Mbaka urged the Federal Government to handle the matter with caution to avoid crisis.
Addressing newsmen yesterday, Mbaka said: “If we decide to give labour N60,000 or N62,000, why not generalize it to the House of Assembly members, senatorial members, House of Representative members, and governors?
“They are all civil servants, so are the others slaves? I can’t understand why they are amazing billions as sitting allowance, wardrobe allowance, newspaper allowance, and suffering allowance.
“The people that should have such allowances are those suffering in the village.
“How much are our teachers, nurses, and doctors being paid? Let’s be realistic, our civil servants that wake early and return late daily, how much are they being paid?
“Looking at the level of inflation in the country, you will see that we are all not sincere in this country.“I’m pleading with the government that a stitch in time saves nine; this situation must be handled with care because it might be hijacked and nobody knows the ripples effect.”
For the first time in my life to truly believe that Father Mbaka has annoiting. Governors can even pay 150K minimum wage for workers and pensioners. The problem with most visionary, projective and sincere governors is that they take on too many projects at a time and want to complete it within their tenure. I will be very disappointed with labor and trade union if they succumb to anything less than 105K minimum wage.