‘N30,000 minimum wage is Buhari’s pay-back to masses’

The Buhari Support Organisation (BSO) in Enugu State yesterday hailed President Muhammadu Buhari for signing the new N30,000 minimum wage into law.

In a statement, the state’s BSO Chairman Anike Nwoga said President Buhari’s name would go down in the annals of history as the most masses and labour-friendly President in Nigeria.

The chairman, whose group championed the re-election of President Buhari, said the President had reciprocated the friendly gesture from masses who supported him since his first presidential election in 2003, by signing the N30,000 minimum wage.

“BSO salutes President Buhari for taking into cognisance the fact that his main voters are low cadre workers, farmers, artisans and house wives who make up about 50 per cent of the 84 million registered voters on the list of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC); hence he signed a holistic nationwide minimum wage bill into law.”

Nwoga added: “BSO applauds this uncommon reward to Nigerian masses as it covers local government, state, Federal and even private sector employers with more than 25 workers. We appeal to local government, state and private sector employers within this category to diligently honour and implement the N30,000 minimum wage. This is a win-win scenario, for it not only rhymes with the provision of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which states clearly that the primary purpose of government is the welfare and security of the people, but will usher in prosperity.

“It is this holy alliance between President Buhari and Nigerian masses, without prejudice to the suit filed before the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, against President Buhari, makes the Facebook suit a mere academic exercise. We have maintained that Mr President has 12 million vote-bank in display exhibited in 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 presidential elections.”

Nwoga, who is also the Chairman of Zikist-Buharist Movement and Vice Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Enugu East Senatorial District, recalled that the President, since assumption of office, had released over N1 trillion bailout funds to governors to offset arrears of workers’ salaries and pensions.

The chairman said the President also released the Paris Club funds, withheld for over seven years by his predecessors, to states.

“BSO once more appeals to governors to implement the minimum wage without delay; for Mr President has set a record as the most masses and labour-friendly President ever in Nigeria’s history.

“We are particularly happy about the timing of the President’s signing of the new minimum wage. If the President had signed it before the election, the opposition would have said it was an election gimmick. The timing has spared us the opposition’s usual fake news.

“While campaigning for a second tenure, President Buhari assured workers of the new N30,000 minimum wage and continuation of critical infrastructural development. This is another promise fulfilled,” he said.