Special Adviser on Information and Startegy to President Bola Tinubu Bayo Onanuga, has said that Nigeria, is “a very poor country.”
Onanuga who stated this while speaking on Arise TV Prime Time programme, maintained that the resources of the country are only being exaggerated by the citizens and compared to other African countries the minimum wage of the Nigerian workers is far below.
The presidential aide was quoted as saying, “What is happening is that our country is a very very poor country. I will tell you why I said we are very poor country. I think we have a wrong impression of the wealth of our country. It is exaggerated.
This country for example, if we start from minimum wage, you will discover that if you compare our country with Kenya or South Africa. South African minimum wage is like $240 a month. In Nigeria, our N33,000 is just about $39. Look at the gap.
“You can see that this reflected in other wages. Look at what the Chief Justice of South African earns, it’s about at the rate of dollar now, it must be about 20 or 30 times of what Nigeria’s Chief Justice earns. And it’s all over.”
Meanwhile, this is coming hours after that the President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, revealed that the minimum wage for Nigerian workers should be pegged at N1 million.
The NLC boss stated that only N1 million minimum wage can measure up to the economic situation of the country which has subjected many Nigerians including workers, to extreme hardship.
“This N1 million may be relevant if the value of the Naira continues to depreciate; if the inflation continues to depreciate. The demand for Labour is equally dependent on what is happening in society. You will remember that by the time we contemplated N200,000, the exchange rate was about N900. Today, the exchange rate is about N1,400 or even more.” Ajaero added.
