After dragging on for weeks, the Federal Government finally came to an agreement with the organised labour on the new minimum wage. While briefing State House correspondents after a meeting between President Bola Tinubu and labour leaders at Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, Thursday, last week, Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, gave N70,000 as the new minimum wage for Nigerian workers. The minister also spoke of the president’s pledge to undertake massive investment in infrastructure, particularly in renewable energy and in the acquisition of more buses, the compressed natural gas (CNG) buses.

Minister of State for Labour, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, on her part said that the president also agreed that the wage should be reviewed every three years instead of five years.

Nigerians must have heaved a sigh of relief that at least one aspect of the waiting game is finally over. We expect that in the coming weeks, both the justice ministry and the National Assembly will expedite the process of getting the agreement formalised so it could be signed into law. After the sabre-rattling, grandstanding and the avoidable tardiness on both sides while the negotiations dragged, the agreement seems the least those institutions could do to put the matter behind us. The organised labour obviously deserves commendation for yielding to the nationalist imperative when it mattered the most; so also the government for showing sensitivity to labour’s demands at a very difficult time.

Even now, we must acknowledge that the struggle is not over. The challenge ahead now consists in its implementation. Given the current situation of the economy, we know that this won’t be easy, particularly for our hordes of operators in the private sector, most especially those in the small and medium scale segment. In fact, there is great possibility of job losses as employers struggle to meet the burden of the new wage. The government might need to consider a bouquet of incentives where necessary, at least until such a time when things stabilise.

More potentially problematic however, are the states and local governments. Given what is already a notorious fact that some state governments only a short while back began to pay the old minimum wage, the question of how those states could be made to comply with the new one has remained a matter of imagination.

Yet, it goes without saying that the states, without exception, have a duty to pay. Point is – there is nothing to suggest that the funds are not there. In fact, the quantum of accretion into the coffers of state governments in recent time should ordinarily allay such fears. The issue here, as against the usual refrain about not having funds, would seem about their need to re-order their priorities, than anything else. This is where the organised labour as a body must consider it part of its duty not just to call them out but to get such states to comply.

The other truth is that most of our elected officials would rather mouth the need for citizens to make necessary sacrifices than practice what they preach. At a time things are supposed to be hard, with the economy generally proving unsparing to the vast majority, what the citizens are daily treated to is mindless ostentation by those elected to serve. Today, if Nigerians are any distraught about the rat race that public service has come to represent, it can only be on account of the yawning disconnect between the standard of living of ordinary citizens and those privileged to get into office. Now is the time for the political leadership at all levels to demonstrate that true and meaningful sacrifice still have a place among its ranks. A good way to start is to shed those notorious under-the-table allowances and other perquisites that have since become the norm.

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