By Ishaya Ibrahim
The National Minimum Wage is now N30,000 up from N18,000.
President Muhammadu Buhari has signed the bill into law, according to a tweet from the All Progressives Congress (APC) twitter handle.
By the President’s action, it is now criminal for any employer who has more than 50 employees to pay less than the benchmark wage, which is now N30,000.
Some state governors had vehemently opposed the new minimum wage on the ground that they were owing salaries even with the old regime of N18,000.
How such state governors would implement the new order to avoid building mounting of indebtedness will be the interest of financial analysts.
This news of a wage increase will excite civil servants and workers of large corporations. But for the private sector with employees less than 50 persons, there is nothing to cheer.
The law is not binding on them, the same as those who work part-time, that is, less than 40 hours a week.