Adeola Aderounmu

Warning strike actions will start across Nigeria on July 20 2011 over the non-implementation of the minimum wage of N18 000. I call this wage poverty wage anyway.

The state governments are saying that they cannot pay the amount as they don’t have that kind of economic resources.

Before the 2011 presidential elections even the NLC went to show support for the election of Jonathan. When Jonathan told them that he had approved N18 000 as their minimum poverty wage, they did not ask him how it will be implemented. They had a stupid meeting with Jonathan I would say. They were too myopic at that time.

The thing is: they can strike forever. The money that the state will use for the payment of the minimum wage is with Jonathan and the federal government.

More than 50% of Nigeria’s wealth is concentrated at the federal level, yet it was Jonathan who signed the minimum wage without initiating processes that will reduce the amount of money at the centre.

Jonathan and NLC are dreamers, I guess.

What is the federal government of Nigeria doing with more than 50% of Nigeria’s wealth?

I know.

Jonathan, his lazy ministers, his idle assistants and the jokers in the National Assembly and House of Representatives are sharing the money daily. These funny crooks who called themselves politicians are taking home more than 25% of the country’s wealth.

The rest of us, more than 160m can go to hell with the remaining 75% that is used to service re-current expenditures.
N18 000?

What can that buy? Still the state government cannot afford to pay it!

Can Jonathan and David Mark live on N18 000? Funny people.

I heard that Italy has a big debt. Do you know how much it is? 1.2 billion euros.

In Nigeria only Dimeji Bankole stole more than that as the speaker of the House of Assembly. This means that he can even pay off the debt of another country including Italy.

Nigerian politicians have no clues. They are interested in looting and they continue to succeed. The people praise them for their ill-gotten wealth and this encourage more and more people to go into politics just to steal.

The minimum wage should not be a problem. If states were formed based on their viability, then N18 000 should not be a problem. But states were created in Nigeria so that they could receive stipends from the oil sales. That is a tragedy on its own. A group of people sit idle all month, wait for money from the federal government and then share or loot the money as the case may be.

The local governments wait upon the state government for the same reason.

So in Nigeria’s politics, it is about money sharing.

They do nothing to promote the state of infrastructure or to develop the service and manufacturing industry. The economy is almost mono-economy surviving mainly on the sales of crude oil. We even import finished oil products. What a country..!

Nigeria needs to be restructured. More than ever before I want the re-emergence of regional governments where the regions would have more control over their resources and economic development.

All the powers concentrated at the centre should be decentralized and all the money going to the federal government that is not doing anything and that is also very far from the people should be taken away and given the regions.

But these things won’t work if corruption remains a way of life. Almost all Nigerian politicians are thieves. So it has been difficult to have both reforms and positive changes.

That makes the struggle for the minimum wage a minor struggle because the system is wrong and bad. It is very annoying actually.

NLC has not used its powers in the right way. It should actually be initiating a revolution that will sweep all these looters into jail or exile.

Nigeria and some countries in West Africa need their own revolutions.

Otherwise these looting, stealing, corruption, laziness in government and the diseases and poverty that continue to spread like wild fire will remain forever in West/ sub-Saharan Africa.

Good luck with your useless misinformed strike NLC. When you are ready, you will revolt once and for all.