Oshiomhole slams minimum wage, calls it “criminal wage”

Adams Oshiomhole, the senator representing Edo North senatorial district, on Sunday criticized the N30,000 monthly minimum wage, referring to it as a “criminal wage.”

He added that even his cleaner receives a salary of no less than N60,000.

The lawmaker revealed this during a live appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.

He said, “If you exchange N30,000 at N800 or N700 to the dollar, what does that translate to? So, the value of that minimum wage when it was N125 – when it was first introduced under, I think, (Shehu) Shagari’s government – is about two times or three times the value many years later, even in the public service.”

According to him, the average responsible private-sector employer is a better employer than the Federal Government or state government.

“I can tell you what I have decided to pay my cleaner. My cleaner is just a primary school – I’m not sure she has even a school leaving certificate. But she’s knowledgeable enough to clean the house.

“I found myself unable to pay her less than N60,000 – in fact, N60,000. It’s about my conscience. I’m trying to imagine what she has to pay for a house. She told me she has four children.

“I’m trying to imagine how she has to look after those children and I cannot question why she should have four children,” he said.

The pay, according to him, will not necessarily “deliver a comfortable living standard, but what you call irreducible minimum for her to survive”.