Former vice president and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, yesterday, flayed the N30,000 minimum wage as no longer sufficient for an average Nigerian worker.
In a statement to felicitate with Nigerian workers on the occasion of the International Workers Day celebrated on May 1, Atiku asked them not to despair but be hopeful.
“In Nigeria of today, the minimum wage of N30,000 cannot buy a full bag of rice, let alone cloth or pay for a worker’s many utility bills. Hyperinflation in all sectors of our nation has constituted serious socio-economic strangulation to the average Nigerian worker, who’s now poorer than in 2015 when APC came to power,” Atiku said.
Atiku advised workers to see the 2023 Worker’s Day as a moment for “sober reflection and stock-taking given the myriad of socio-economic tribulations facing them in the last eight years.”
The former vice-president said the lives and welfare of workers and their families have been reduced to the “abyss of mere existence due to the litany of policy errors by the ruling APC government which created insecurity in all facets of workers’ lives — food, shelter, health, wealth and education.”