By Seyi Odewale
A former Director-General of Voice of Nigeria, Osita Okechukwu has urged labour unions in the country to opt for housing mortgages to avoid what he called ‘stagflation’ as their demand for a minimum wage of N615,000.00, was unrealistic.
Okechukwu, while responding to labour unions’ N615,000 minimum wage demand, appealed to them to go for mortgage housing- one of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, to avoid stagflation which will wipe out social welfare policies.
He added that the amount was unrealistic, especially when some states had blatantly refused to pay the current N30,000 and the Nigerian Governor’s Forum had frowned at the 25 percent and 35 percent increase recently approved by the Federal Government.
“Whereas one agrees with the working people that the neoliberal policies like fuel subsidy removal are no doubt taking its toll on our living conditions; however unrealistic minimum wage is not a better deal than mortgage housing for all, one of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as the core take away from fuel subsidy removal quagmire,” Okechukwu said.
According to him, to avoid the dire economic consequences of the stagflation, which N615,000 minimum wage could trigger, central to labour’s collective bargaining should be mortgage housing for all, affordable health and education facilities, and channelling of funds to the mass transport infrastructure of CNG and electric vehicles, not unrealistic minimum wage difficult to implement under stagnated economy already at the lowest ebb of growth.
He said experience and meaningful economic indicators gazette showed that N615,000 minimum wage would further debilitate the living conditions of workers, escalate gross unemployment, and reduce purchasing power parity of the same vulnerable working class, making nonsense of the labours’ proposal.
It will be recalled that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) issued a press statement on May 2, 2024, endorsed by the President, Comrade Joe Ajaero, where he stated how labour took painstaking efforts and wide consultations to arrive at the N615,000 minimum wage family monthly upkeep as proposed inter-alia: Housing – N40,000; Electricity – N20,000; Water – N10,000; Kerosene/Gas – N35,000; Food – N270,000; Medical – N50,000; Clotting – N20,000; Education – N50,000; Sanitation – N10,000; and Transportation – N110.
Okechukwu agreed that the basket tabulation of monthly family upkeep proposed by the NLC was appetising; but urged the unions to rejig their collective bargaining strategy to fire up and compel President Bola Tinubu to retool his mortgage housing programme, which would better soften the prevailing economic hardship.
