Zamfara State Governor Abdulaziz Yari, Chairman of the Nigerian Governors' Forum (NGF), hit the headline for the low last week when he said that governors "are not against the upward review of the minimum wage but they only lack capacity to pay it". The received wisdom had it that if there is the will, there would always be a way.
Is Governor Abdulaziz Yari, saying governors who had the enormous will to seek ways and means to recently finance and refinance serial televised primary and indirect party primaries with some delegates paid in sundry currencies (and certainly more than national minimum wage) suddenly lack the capacity to pay their workforce? Governors' Forum should tell its tale to whoever wants to listen. But governors' fairy tale cannot be substitute for a negotiated outcome in a tripartite committee that includes the governors, organized labour and organized private sector employers.
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