Adams Oshiomhole, the senator representing Edo North senatorial district, made a statement on Sunday, criticizing the N30,000 monthly minimum wage, deeming it a “criminal wage.”
According to him, “What we call minimum wage is a criminal wage,” stating that even his cleaner earns no less than N60,000.
Oshiomhole said this when he appeared on Sunday Politics, Channels Television programme, on Sunday.
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.”
The former governor of Edo State maintained that the average responsible private-sector employer is a better employer than the Federal Government or state government, exemplifying the amount his cleaner earns.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
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Oshiomhole furthered that, given his background and what he knows about the cost of living, he could pay her any less “in a clean conscience”.
The 71-year-old lawmaker explained that “if I have chosen to employ a cleaner and chosen not to clean the house by myself, that is the least I thought I could pay” her.
The pay, according to him, will not necessarily “deliver a comfortable living standard, but what you call irreducible minimum for her to survive”.
“If I do that to my cleaner, I have to do a little more to my driver because he requires some training and sometimes, even retraining, and my security is in his hands,” he added.