The Peoples Democratic Party has described the minimum wage recently signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari as mere propaganda, deceit and scamming of the Nigerian Civil servants.
The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the Opposition Party, PDP, Prince Diran Odeyemi disclosed this in a statement he released to the press recently.
Prince Odeyemi argued that the Nigerian workforce deserved more than the N30,000 minimum wage considering the skyrocket exchange rate of Dollars when compared to that of the administration of President Good Jonathan.
He said workers may not known that President Buhari had deceived and shortchanged them by signing into law the new minimum wage, which he described as being ridiculously low if compared with the N18,000 approved during the government of erstwhile President Jonathan.
According to him, “I was amused at the wide jubilation and undeserved publicity being accorded the so-called minimum wage which he described as “ridiculously low if compared with the N18,000 ($122) minimum wage approved during the reign of President Goodluck Jonathan under the PDP administration.”
“The exchange rate of US$ dollars to the Naira in 2010 was N147 to $1 which then translated N18,000 to be $122.
“if the APC wants to be honest with themselves and the sufferings of the Nigerian civil servants, what was expected of the ruling party was to just multiply $122 by the current exchange rate of N360 to $1 which would have given the civil servants a minimum salary of $122 x N360 which is N43,920 that they truly deserved.”
In essence, Prince Odeyemi insisted that “the Federal government has deliberately cheated the Nigerian civil servants with not less that $19 or N13,920.”
He further argued that “these are the reasons why PDP went the whole hug traversing the length and breadth of this country during the presidential campaign with assurances that the Naira was too weak with the lowest purchasing power ever in the history of our dear nation since the inception of APC administration on May 29, 2015.”
Odeyemi, however said that it was a pity that their votes were not allowed to count.
However, Odeyemi assured Nigerians that their mandate that was freely given to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar will be restored at the tribunal with the spate of revelations and details of riggings during the presidential election that are coming out in their droves across the country.
