By Abiola Olawale
Garba Datti-Babawo, a member of the House of Representatives, representing Sabon Gari federal constituency, Kaduna State, has disclosed the reasons he sponsored a bill seeking to move the national minimum wage from the exclusive legislative list to concurrent list.
Datti-Babawo gave the reason following the commencement of nationwide protest by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) over the proposed amendment of the minimum wage at the National Assembly.
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According to him, the state governments should be afforded the opportunity to negotiate minimum wage with the NLC consideration in line with their revenue, rather than allowing the Federal Government determine the minimum wage on behalf of the state governments.
The lawmakers argued that there are various socio-economic variables in Nigeria, adding that all states are not equal. He stated that the decision on the minimum wage should be decided by the state assemblies, because they are responsible for passing the budget of each states.
Datti-Babawo disclosed this during an interview session with The International Centre for Investigation Reporting (ICIR), on Wednesday.
Reacting to the Nationwide protest, the lawmakers advised the NLC to attend the Public hearing of the bill rather than employing devices of ‘intimation’ through protest.
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In his words, “Since it has been changed to 30,000 naira, you will find out that most of the states could not pay until the federal government intervened by giving them bailouts to pay. Now that there is no bailout, they cannot pay and most of the states are threatening to retrench most of their workers if they have to pay the 30,000 naira. What we are saying is that we should allow them to negotiate what they can pay based on their own resources because the money that goes to the federal government is not the same that goes to the state governments. Even among states, their resources are not the same.
“There are many socio-economic variables based on local peculiarities like the cost of living, housing, cost of school fees transportation, feeding and others. In essence, you will find out that more than 80 percent of local governments, after paying salaries, would not have anything to implement any single capital project, even for drugs for their clinics. NLC president has also written a letter to me which I replied in a five-page letter. In that letter, he said I should not have brought that bill, that I should have sat with them and negotiate, but I said that is not how we operate. When we brought this bill, there was a debate of which more than 80 percent of those who contributed were in support.
“Those are the people that represent the people. We advise them to come for the public hearing if the members are convinced with their argument. Nothing stops them from throwing the bill away. Of what good is a law that is not implementable and has no punishment when broken? I am looking at their protests now. The chairman is talking about me, which is a very wrong approach, and he should not talk about me because it is an issue of National Assembly. If it is not a popular bill, it would not be voted for. We have also seen how they turned it into a personal issue and this is the method employed by labour all the time when there is something of this nature. They do not engage in constructive dialogue, they resort to insult, they resort to all forms of intimidation which I think would not solve their own problem. If we allow it, most of the states would retrench almost 60 percent of their workers. Even NLC Kaduna is attacking me, but I am unperturbed, I do not care because the truth would always prevail.”
