The Labour Party governorship candidate in Kwara State, Issa Aremu, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to present the negotiated N30,000 minimum wage bill to the National Assembly for legislation as a tribute to a former President, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, who died on Friday.
Aremu in his condolence message to the President on the death of Alhaji Shagari noted that the former President was Labour-friendly and was the first leader to sign the Minimum Wage Act in 1981.
Aremu, who is a NEC Member of the Nigeria Labour Congress, said, “What distinguished Shagari’s leadership was his power of delegation, persuasion and negotiation which made him reach a number of agreements with labour over wide range of issues that included minimum wage review, car and leave allowances, provident fund and decent work in general.”
He added, “It is to the eternal credit of Shagari’s tenure and his team (the notable being Alhaji Shehu Musa) that there was only one national strike which lasted one day during the Second Republic dispensation and in one particular instance President Shehu Shagari personally intervened to stop a major strike threat.”
He said the best tribute to Shagari would be for politicians to rededicate themselves to the task of nation-building through statesmanship and renewed peaceful democratic conduct as elections approached.
Aremu observed that the most remarkable legacy of Shagari was “horizontal and vertical consensus building, tolerance and peaceful conduct in a polity rooted in acrimony and mutual war of attrition like that of Nigeria.”
The LP candidate recalled that the late President, though leading the ruling National Party of Nigeria, supported the Lagos metro-line project notwithstanding the fact that former Governor Lateef Jakande of Lagos State was of the opposition Unity Party of Nigeria.
Aremu also noted that Shagari “exercised considerable presidential restraint” in the face of provocation of the then opposition Oyo State Government whose officials demolished NPN houses.
He noted that the death of President Shagari close to the historic 2019 elections, was a divine reminder for all members of the political class to play by the rules of the Independent National Electoral Commission towards ensuring free and fair elections.
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