MINIMUM WAGE: GOVS' REFUSAL RIDICULES NIGERIA -OKODUWA

The General Overseer/Founder of Dispensational Gospel Missions International, Archbishop Peter Okoduwa, has said that governors were portraying Nigeria in a bad light by insisting that they could not pay the N18,000 minimum wage.

The cleric told Sunday Sun that the country is blessed enough to pay its workers more than the minimum wage being demanded saying that since it is a statutory matter, it must be obeyed to the letter.

'It is even a shame to let other nations know that N18,000 is what Nigeria is paying. If Nigerians want to know how rich Nigeria is, they should ask the EFCC and the banks. They know how much some of these politicians have. So if they say they cannot pay, it is a lie. Both the federal and state governments can pay. They can pay it conveniently without stress,' he said.

He argued that those states that claim they cannot pay must have depended only on federal allocation rather than working on how to improve their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). He warned that the insistence not to pay by some states was tantamount to flouting the law of the land and charged the National Assembly (NASS), which passed the law, to ensure its implementation or reverse it to avoid crisis.