The Presidency, on Sunday, insisted that the N250,000 minimum wage clamour by Organised Labour is unsustainable, warning that the Federal Government cannot channeled all its resources to meet such a demand.
The warning comes two days after the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria raised concerns over the N62,000 being proposed by the FG.
The ALGON said if approved, the wage may put a strain on the councils’ financial burden.
On Tuesday, May 28, talks between the Federal Government and Organised Labour broke down after the government and the Organised Private Sector raised their offers to N62,000.
But the labour unions described the proposal as an insult to the intelligence of the average Nigerian worker, which deserves far better than what the government offered
Speaking in an exclusive interview with The PUNCH, the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, disclosed that unless the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress were selfish, they should consider that the resources meant for the entire Nigerians could not be channeled to only the benefit of their members who are not more than 10 per cent of the entire population.
He said, “That is why we keep telling labour to be realistic because the government cannot use all its resources to pay workers. They have other things to do. The workers we are even talking about are not up to 10 per cent of the population. Many people are self-employed or engaged in the private sector, who are not members of Labour, and are not affected by this demand.