Senator Ali Ndume and Femi Aborisade
Ibadan-based labour activist and human right lawyer, Femi Aborisade, has lampooned Senator Ali Ndume over his call for a slash in the salary of public sector worker who are not on duty during lockdown on coronavirus pandemic.
Aborisade said the lawmaker’s position was a result of ignorance of extant labour laws
He said, “The call by Senator Ali Ndume that salaries of public sector workers should be reduced on account of inability to continue to work during the government-imposed (that is, employer-imposed) lockdown is a position informed by ignorance of the state of the law by the lawmaker.
“In law, for as long as the employment relationship has not been determined strictly in accordance with the terms of the contract of employment, the employer has a duty to continue to pay workers who are willing to work but are under an obligation to obey the lockdown imposed by their employers – the Federal and State governments. For people who are ignorant of the law like Senator Ndume, public sector employment relationship, with a few exceptions, have constitutional and statutory flavour and are deemed to subsist until retirement age unless determined by strict observance of the predetermined prescribed procedure and grounds pursuant to statutory provisions or public service regulations made pursuant to the Constitution.
According to him, the same situation exist in the private sector, stating that, where workers lose their jobs, or small businesses in the informal sector collapse, various schemes exist by legislation under the covid-19 pandemic situation to protect or sustain life. Such legislated programmes and schemes, in other climes, include the Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI),Unemployment Insuance (UI), Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA),The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), among several others.
“Senator Ali Ndume has shown, by his wicked policy advocacy, that he belongs to the category of lawmakers and members of the ruling class who are strangulating Nigerians by keeping their knees on the necks of ordinary people and preventing them from breathing or living as they deserve to live decently.Such Senators deserve to be recalled.It is high time we had a constitutional provision that those elected into the legislature and the executive arms of government should earn only minimum we, if they must be paid at all”.
