Olanipekun backs NLC over N56,000 workers’ minimum wage

A former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), on Thursday backed the N56,000 minimum wage being demanded by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC).

While urging the Federal Government to grant the request, he said no responsible government should pay less than what the organized labour is demanding.

Olanipekun, who lamented high level of unemployment in the country, described unemployment as a scourge that is more painful than corruption adding “in fact, it is more painful because unemployment festers corruption.”

Speaking with journalists in Ikere-Ekiti, his home-country, the senior legal practitioner noted that Nigerian leaders had not shown enough concerns and empathy with Nigerian workers and the unemployed in the society.

He said, “I agree with the NLC on its demand for the new minimum wage. No government in this country should pay less than that. NLC is even being benevolent. Why is government running away from paying that minimum wage? Why is government not creating employment opportunities?”

Olanipekun demanded pragmatic policies from the federal government towards creating jobs for the nation’s teeming youths.

He described Nigerian leaders and wealthy individuals in the country as self-centred, self-opinionated, narrow-minded, and so restrictive in reasoning.

“We want our own children to survive but we don’t want an army of other Nigerian children to succeed. This is why poverty thrives here. You alleviate poverty by giving good governance, by stopping stealing, by giving employment, by not snatching ballot boxes.

“The ballot boxes should be seen as a sacred box, don’t touch – you must respect it. It is a collective conscience of all of us. It is a corporate surrender of all of us and it is sacred.  Don’t buy election or give money to buy voters to your side.

“Woe betides those who loot the treasury but looting can be prevented with adequate government policies and good governance. By bad governance we are encouraging looting.

“Government must enact fundamental policies. There must be a synergy among the three tiers of government. Government at all level must take the issue of unemployment very seriously.

“Thousands are graduating every year, when we are churning out these graduates, as a pro chancellor of a university, I am saddened that years back during our own time, jobs were waiting for us as we leave school.

“But today, you don’t find such job many years after graduation. If Nigeria was not good when we were growing up, we won’t be what we are,” he said.