After coming out with an announcement to Nigerians that the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi will increase the minimum wage in the country from N30,000 to N80,000 when elected, the leadership of the Labour Party has recanted such promise.
It says that the Deputy National Chairman who made the pronouncement does not have the right to make such on behalf of Obi, a development that further exposes the festering cracks within the party.
It will be recalled that the party has been embattled with all shades of leadership crisis that has seen its campaign suffer significant setbacks with the latest being the decamping of its ex-gubernatorial candidate in Osun state, Lasun Yusuf to the PDP and the sacking of its campaign Director General, Doyin Okupe.
LP Deputy National Chairman, Ayo Olorunfemi, had appeared on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday, revealing that Peter Obi will increase the minimum wage from the paltry N30,000 to about N100,000 when he wins the 2023 presidential election.
He said, “The party is eyeing N80,000 to N100,000. But it also depends on the nature of the job that would be given out. For instance, when you take a cursory look at the manual labourer out there, he does not take less than N2,500 to N3,000 per day, which is still not okay as far as the reward system is concerned. If you divide N3,000 by six hours, you will be talking about N500 per hour.
“When you benchmark that against what we have now, certainly, you would be talking of something within the range of N500-N1,000 per hour depending on the nature of work, and at the end of the day, someone can effectively say that he can make up to N4,000 in a day. And when you multiply N4,000 in a day by 20 or 25, we are talking about N80,000 or N100,000 in a month.”
However, reacting to the statement by the deputy national chairman, the LP National Publicity Secretary, Abayomi Arabambi, slammed Olurunfemi for making a pronouncement that was outside his purview.
“He is not competent to speak or make such claim. Such statement can only come from the mouth of the presidential candidate. Olorunfemi wasn’t directed to speak to that effect. Wherever he picked the information, we don’t know.
“We know Mr Peter Obi is not a frivolous person. There was no way he could just issue a random statement that he will increase minimum wage from N30,000 to N100,000.
“Don’t forget that he is also a Senatorial candidate in Ondo. Probably, he is saying that in his own capacity pending when he enters the Senate. Maybe, by then, he will able to work towards increasing it to that level.”