How COVID-19 Plunged 27m Nigerian Workers Into Poverty – Labour

As the world commem­orates the International Workers Day 2021, the two Labour centres, Nige­ria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress, on Saturday lamented the misfortunes that COVID-19 pandemic brought on the working class, especially in Nigeria.

Both centres, in a joint speech at the ceremony commemorated at the Ea­gle Square, Abuja, said no fewer than 27 million Ni­gerians fell headlong into poverty, shooting up the community of the working poor in Nigeria.

Beyond this, Labour said the figures translated to a 14-point percentage in­crease in the poverty head­count rate in Nigeria as a result of the pandemic.

NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, said the country equally suffered a 34.1 per­cent loss in GDP, translat­ing to about 16 billion Unit­ed States dollars, stressing that most of the losses, about two- third, happened in the services sector.

Using a recent statis­tical research findings to buttress NLC’s position, Wabba said the impact of the pandemic on the Ni­gerian economy saw it de­clining by 6.1percent, year on year in quarter two of 2020. With the oil sector contracting by 6.6 percent year on year and 10.1 per­cent quarter on quarter.

“The manufacturing, trade and construction sectors contracted by 8.8 percent year on year, 16.6 percent year on year and 31.8 percent year on year respectively.

“Given the foregoing account of the work epi­demiology of COVID-19, it is easier to understand that the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria is strongly connected with the work­place. Till today, COVID-19 continues to put at risk the life, health and livelihood of workers,” he stated.

Labour also criticised the legislature and state governments for recent plots to review the Nation­al Minimum Wage Act, under the guise of restruc­turing.

Recall that Labour had protested an alleged plot by the National Assembly to transfer the minimum wage from Exclusive to the Concurrent List to give fed­erating states leverage to fix wages they could com­fortably pay workers.

But, Wabba in condemn­ing the move, said, “the ar­gument that the transfer of the National Minimum Wage from the Exclusive to the Concurrent List is part of the efforts to restruc­ture the country is a poor attempt to call a dog a bad name in order to hang it.

Source : Daily Independent