Atiku: Minimum wage can no longer take workers to work and back home

Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), says the N30,000 minimum wage is no longer sufficient to meet the demand of an average Nigerian worker.

In a statement issued on Sunday to felicitate with Nigerian workers on the occasion of the International Workers Day celebrated on May 1, Atiku asked them not to despair but be hopeful.

Atiku advised workers to see the 2023 Worker’s Day as a moment for “sober reflection and stock-taking given the myriad of socio-economic tribulations facing them in the last eight years”.

The former vice-president said the lives and welfare of workers and their families have been reduced to the “abyss of mere existence due to the litany of policy errors by the ruling APC government which created insecurity in all facets of workers’ lives — food, shelter, health, wealth and education”.

“In Nigeria of today, the minimum wage of N30,000 cannot buy a full bag of rice, let alone cloth or pay for a worker’s many utility bills. Hyperinflation in all sectors of our nation has constituted serious socio-economic strangulation to the average Nigerian worker, who’s now poorer than in 2015 when APC came to power,” Atiku said.

“It is unimaginable how a government could be so heartless to treat its bonafide citizens like medieval slaves in colonial plantations. Where are the so-called ‘dividends of democracy’? Labourers do deserve commensurate wages that meet pervading economic conditions of the time. Alas, Nigerian workers now receive wages that can no longer take them home or bring them back to the office”.

Abubakar said despite the “precarious situation”, workers should not despair and cowed, but keep their heads above water and stay afloat, be resilient and hopeful for the sake of the younger generation and the country’s future.

Atiku further extolled the virtues of hard work, perseverance and endurance of the working people in the country. 

“Hope is the breath that keeps people alive. Let’s work together in unity of voice and purpose to retrieve our electoral victory through the law courts. Let’s have faith that the judiciary would be fair and dispense unbiased justice,” Atiku said.