MINIMUM WAGE: YOU'RE FRAUDULENT, BUHARI BLASTS GOVS

Presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), has slammed state governors for foot-dragging on the payment of the N18,00 national minimum wage despite participating in the processes leading to the agreement. Gen. Buhari said the governors' action was fraudulent.

Speaking through his spokesman, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, Buhari said 'given the state of the elite today, given the state of the economy and given what the market is saying, the 18,000 naira we are talking about, is not a living wage.' By the time you buy a bag of rice from the 18,000 naira today, I don't know how much that is left.'

Buhari noted that the amount was a take-home pay that could not even take the workers home, adding that 'it is part of the contradictions of the present arrangement.'

Buhari said: 'You went to negotiations, you agree, you signed an agreement and a law was issued based on the agreement before the elections. Now, after the elections, you start to renege and begin to sing different tunes.'

Speaking further, Buhari said that confirm the impression some people have that a politician is a man who shakes your hand before the election and shakes your confidence after the election.

'There is no basis to agree before the elections, after which the law was signed, and now begin to tell different stories after you have taken what you wanted. That amounts to 419, obtaining under false pretence.

'As it is, we believe that the payment of minimum wage is possible if all the loopholes are blocked.

'The Central Bank Nigeria (CBN) governor did come out to say that look, the National Assembly alone takes 25 percent of overhead in our budget. But when you go deep to what happens in the executive, you will discover that what you are shouting about in the National Assembly, is a tip of the iceberg. It is a small thing compared to what is being done at the executive level.'

'There are serious kinds of frivolous contracts being awarded. We have seen the way our natural resources are being wasted and we have seen the crazy emolument being earned by National Assembly officials.

It is because of the greed of a few that we cannot meet the need of the majority,' Buhari stated.

Buhari also said that the minimum wage cannot be paid as long as public officials, those in government, want to sustain this unjust arrangement of a criminal disparage between what those who are in government are earning, and what the workers and other segments of the society benefit from the system.