“The position of the governors is not very clear to some of you — that we are willing to pay the amount, but the issue is the capacity, the muscle to pay," Yari said.
An emergency meeting of the Nigerian Governors Forum is scheduled for Tuesday, October 30, 2018, to discuss the new national minimum wage.
This was disclosed by Abdulaziz Yari, Governor of Zamfara State on Tuesday, after a meeting of the Economic Management Team, which had Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo in attendance.
According to NAN, Yari spoke after the meeting on Monday at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, where he restated that it was not that the governors were unwilling to pay, but the issue was "the muscle to pay".
He said: “The position of the governors is not very clear to some of you — that we are willing to pay the amount but the issue is the capacity — the muscle to pay. We discussed that government has some numbers and eventually, the committee has made some proposals, but the governors have not come out with any amount.
“So, tomorrow, we are going to discuss with governors and say 'look at what Labour is sending'.
“[We'll] look at the bill that was directed by the Minister of Labour and Employment to be sent to the NGF’s secretariat, so that we can digest the content of the bill, discuss it and come up with our position as governors, because we are critical partners on this."