Governors in Crucial Meeting Today to Discuss Minimum Wage, LG Autonomy

•To seek review of 1999 constitution, revenue sharing formula

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

Ahead of the meeting between the organised labour and  President Bola Tinubu on Thursday, governors are scheduled to meet today to adopt a common position that would be sent to the meeting.

The governors, who would meet physically, have slated to discuss the financial autonomy granted by the Supreme Court to the 774 local governments in the country.

THISDAY sources at the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) Secretariat said the position of the governors on the financial autonomy was due to the constitutional issues that arose as a result of the supreme court decision.

According to a source at the NGF secretariat, Section 162(6) of the 1999 Constitution states that, “each state shall maintain a specific account to be called State-Joint Local Government Account into which shall be paid all allocations to the local government councils of the state from the Federation Account and from the government of the state.”

The source said much as the governors had said that they have no objection to the Supreme Court judgement, the development has thrown up constitutional issues that must be addressed

THISDAY further gathered that some governors from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were asking for a constitutional reform to address the perceived constitutional issues thrown up by section. 162 (6) of the 1999 constitution.

On the Thursday meeting between Tinubu and the organised labour, the governors are expected to submit a unified position on the minimum wage to the meeting

The governors have maintained that they could not afford to pay the organised labour demand of N250,000 minimum wage as it could cause spiral inflation in the country.

Already, the inflation statistics released by the National Board of Statistics (NBS) put inflation in the country at almost 34.2 per cent.

The governors were still calling for a minimum wage of each state based on ability to pay as a unified minimum wage, contrary to the spirit of federal constitutional democracy in the country.

At the last meeting of the tripartite committee meeting set up by the federal government, the governors insisted not exceeding N60,000 minimum wage.