A socio-cultural organisation, Oyo Patriotic Front, on Tuesday berated the factional leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress in Oyo State for rejecting the N19,987 minimum wage offered the civil servants in the state by Governor Abiola Ajimobi.
The organisation, in a statement issued in Ibadan by its Chairman, Chief Jare Adepoju, expressed regret that the union leaders had turned themselves to willing tools in the hands of the opposition to cause disharmony in the state.
Ajimobi had, on Monday, during an interactive session with the civil servants in the state, announced the new wage to the wide applause of the audience at the capacity-filled House of Chiefs, Secretariat, Ibadan.
The group wondered why labour would reject such a gesture, not minding the fact that the new minimum wage would be gulping 92 per cent of the total income of the state, thus leaving only eight percent for development projects.
The group said: “The governor was so sincere by laying before the civil servants facts and figure on the financial position of the state, explaining to them that government would require a total sum of N4.1 billion monthly to pay the new wage while the total revenue accruing to the state on monthly basis amounted to N4.6 billion.
“This is further worsened by the fact that the state has 38,000 workers and 13,000 pensioners, the highest in the South-West geo-political zone.
“Ordinarily, the governor ought to have embraced the option of reducing the workforce to a sizeable number in order for him to conveniently pay the new wage and use the remaining to provide basic amenities for the people.
“But he has ruled out that option out of his magnanimity and love for the workers and their families.
“If labour does not want to prove the people insinuating that it is being used by the opposition right, it ought to have allowed reason to prevail that government cannot afford to commit the whole resources of the state to paying salaries and wages of civil servants who constitute less than one per cent of the entire population at the expense of the citizenry who it swore to serve.”
The organisation, therefore, called on workers to go back to work and allow for further dialogue with the state government.