Saraki and Kwara State workers

My constructive engagement with my brother, the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki on governance issues of our dear state, certainly predated my emergence as the Governorship candidate in February election under the Labour Party (LP). The Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki was recently reported as saying he “would start off setting (sic) salary arrears owed certain category of workers in Kwara state from next week”. Saraki reportedly announced the news during the PDP monthly stakeholders’ meeting at the ‘charity house’ in Ilorin, Kwara State. I waited to read distinguished Senator Saraki’s rebuttal of this undignified news, which as it were, redefined pay as an act of charity rather than workers’ earned right.

Civil servants of the great pioneer state of Kwara created in 1967 are certainly NOT Senator Saraki’s domestic staff. Even for his domestic staff he is not at liberty to pay salaries long due at his pleasure “from next week”. He is neither the defaulting governor nor local government chairman. It stretches personalization of governance to the limit making salary payment an act of petty partisan charity to workers. The 1999 constitution envisages salaries and pensions as legitimate earnings for services rendered by workers for the state. Relevant labour laws legitimize these constitutional provisions with sanctions for non-compliance. The 1999 constitution recognizes the STATE not an individual or “a leader” (ascribed or earned)!

Democracy remains government of the people by the people, for the people not of one single individual for himself and by himself! Before next week? Is the senator aware that some unpaid workers were long dead? The state governor reportedly blamed his inability to clear the backlog of salary arrears on the drop in the federal allocation to the state and the refusal of the federal government to release the state’s last tranche of the Paris Club refund. But does the drop in federal allocation affect his own salaries, emoluments, huge security votes and expensive travel budgets through chattered flights? Does the non-release of Paris Club refund affect the payments of emoluments of his commissioners and advisers and waste of resources on projects of dubious developmental value? Governor Ahmed must for once just consider the plight of that worker whose salary was not paid for one to seven months or criminally paid at reduced rates. For the worker who is a sole breadwinner, the family support has collapsed. Food is difficult to find to feed the children with all the implications for malnutrition. Some kids are withdrawn from school on account of nonpayment of school fees while the next Sallah or Christmas cloth will necessarily elude the children. We pray that the family of the workers not paid is not sick either.

Many workers have passed on due to lack of out-of-pockets money to treat preventable diseases like malaria, pneumonia or auto accidents. Since the breadwinner cannot meet expectation, depression has logically replaced love within many working households. The options before a worker not paid in a state without social security and comprehensive Medicare like Kwara State are better imagined.

Non-payment of and salaries makes work life ever precarious. President Muhammadu Buhari commendably once asked the wage defaulting governors and their patrons: “How do you get sleep at night when your workers are not paid as at when due?” Non-payment of good pay amounts to what I call economicide (systemic destruction of lives on account of lack of means of live hood). Wages are amount of remuneration that a state and local government or any employer are required to pay workers for the work performed during a given period not “later next week”.

Nigeria currently faces a crisis of governance with respect to payment of legitimate salaries and wages of workers. It is unacceptable that in 2018, some state governance shamelessly argue against N30,000 minimum wage; N1000 per day for an average of working family a man, his wife and four children, $80 dollars per month, compared to monthly minimum wage of $200 Nigerian workers earned in 1981. I agree with the NLC that payment of living wage is the defining issue in the coming elections. South Africa on the eve of election next year just announced its first monthly minimum wage of $206. I salute state governors who agreed with organized labour, organized private sectors and the Federal government on the new minimum pay of N30,000! Conversely the opposing governors stand against 1999 constitution which accepts the principles of negotiated minimum and living wages. I commend the CBN under Governor Godwin Emefiele. He rightly pointed out that increased minimum pay is a necessary condition for Nigerian economic recovery. At its recently concluded Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja the CBN communiqué reads that “…given the negative output gap, the proposed increase in the national minimum wage would stimulate output growth due to prolonged weak aggregate demand arising from salary arrears and contractor debt,”. Both Lagos and Kano states are leading on the ranking of GDP and ease of doing business. It’s not surprising because the two states pay relatively good salaries and promptly too! Good wage is smart economics for nation building, through improved effective demand and eradication of income poverty. President Muhammadu Buhari commendably set up the new minimum wage committee and gave it free hands to operate. The President should push for a speedy legislation on a new negotiated minimum wage of N30,000 for Nigerian workers by the national assembly! All faiths underline the importance of prompt remuneration for working men and women. Prophet Muhammed (pbuh), said: “Allah said, ‘I will be the opponent of …one who hires a workman and having taken full work from him, does not pay him his wages, on the Day of Judgment”. According to Pope John Paul II, ‘A just wage for the worker is the ultimate test of whether any economic system is performing justly’.