Wike canvasses for separate minimum wages for states

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, has stated that Nigerian workers will be better off when states are allowed to fix their separate minimum wages in line with their financial capacity.

The governor, who spoke during a public hearing on the new national minimum wage The Executive Secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr Hamid Bobboyi, has said the commission does not have an exact figure of out-of-school children in the country.

Bobboyi made the statement in Abuja yesterday, while briefing journalists on conduct of 2018 National Personnel Audit (NPA) of basic education institutions in Nigeria.

“We for Nigerian workers for the South-South geopolitical zone in Port Harcourt yesterday, said states vary in financial capacity and making a uniform minimum wage was unrealistic.

He said previous reviews failed to give maximum weight to existing disparity in economic potential and capabilities among the states.

UBEC: We don’t have exact figure of out-of-school kids

accurate number of outof-school children due to increasing number of those forced to leave school by Boko Haram insurgents in the NorthEast,” he said.

Dr Bobboyi said even the figure of 13.5million out-of-school children is not correct.

According to him, the major reason why the commission could not have the exact figure was that UBEC was unable to conduct census of all basic education institutions in the country.