Popular human rights lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) has called on the Attorney General of the Federation to sanction states that fail to pay the current N30,000 minimum wage.
He stated that the payment of the minimum wage is an agreement entered into freely, state governments unable to honour such a deal are breaching the law.
“Once a new agreement, a new minimum wage becomes the law of the country. The Federal Government has a duty, and the Attorney General of the country has a duty to drag any state government that does not pay to court,” he said on Tuesday’s edition of Channels Television’s The Morning Brief.
“I mean, the attorney general can just file a new case, which is a good development, by saying over the years, we have accused state governments of diverting monuments for local governments.”
With the fuel subsidy removed and the naira floating, calls for a new minimum wage have increased dramatically due to the country’s soaring cost of living.
The Federal Governments and trade unions have not reached a consensus on a new minimum wage despite multiple discussions. Workers stopped working on Monday due to frustration with the current situation, which halted business operations in vital industries.
However, Falana contends that states cannot claim a shortage of funding for paying the minimum wage because they now have more money as a result of the withdrawal of subsidies.
“There is no state in Nigeria today that cannot pay more than the minimum wage because the government removed fuel subsidy last year and told Nigerians that the money made from that policy shall be [paid to state governments] ” the legal practitioner said.
Falana says state governments will be compelled to pay the minimum and he is pushing for the deduction of workers’ salaries from the source.
“I heard you earlier. Oh, some people cannot pay N30,000 minimum wage. It shouldn’t be coming from the government because that is an admission of illegality,” Falana said.
