The Anambra State Chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Tuesday lamented the deteriorating economic situation in the country, noting that the minimum wage of N18,000 can no longer buy a bag of rice.

The state chairman of NLC, Mr. Jerry Nnubia, made the lamentation while addressing workers at the occasion of the remembrance of two workers in the Nasarawa State civil service allegedly killed by the police on July 29, 2016 while protesting the slashing of workers’ salary by the State Government.

He noted that the living standard of Nigerian workers has dropped so much that most workers could no longer fend for their families.

The workers, who mourned their colleagues in black attire, marched from the NULGE office behind the state House of Assembly complex, to the popular Aroma Junction along the Awka/Enugu Expressway, where Nnubia addressed them.

Nnubia declared it an act of wickedness for any State Government to cut workers’ salary at this time of economic hardship.

He said Comrades Aliyu Abdullahi Umbugadu and Rabiu Mohammed Hamza were shot at the gate of the Government House in Lafia while waiting to hear the outcome of the negotiation between labour and the State Government over the reduction of workers’ salaries by Governor Tanko Al-Makura.

While describing the situation as pathetic, Nnubia wondered why workers should always be the victims of every economic hardship adding that workers were also not remembered during economic boom.

His words: “It is laughable that the same salary paid when a bag of rice was sold for N9,000 is the same salary that is paid when a bag of rice is being sold for N23,000 or more.

“Our position is that any governor that cannot pay workers’ salaries should resign. Slicing workers’ salary now is not only wicked, but inhuman. And why have the governors not sliced their wages and those of their aides?

“They always tell us to tighten our belts, while they have continued to loosen theirs to accommodate their sizes.”

The State NLC Chairman stressed that congress would not relent in its struggles until justice is done in Nassarawa State over the killing of the two workers and demanded that the policemen who killed the workers should be brought to book.

He also condemned the recent policy in Imo State whereby Governor Rochas Okorocha unilaterally reduced working days to three without the attendant leave allowances.

Nnubia also condemned the situation in Kogi State, where he said the State Government had denied the workers their salaries on the pretence that it was conducting staff audit.