The recent announcement by Lagos Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s recent on how much the state will pay as new minimum wage has sparked criticism from Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, who argues that the governor’s boasts about increasing the Lagos budget rings hollow amidst the city’s persistent challenges.
Rhodes-Vivour, the Labour Party governorship candidate in the state for the 2023 elections, said, “Lagos has the highest intra-city public transportation costs in Nigeria and ranks second nationally in the average cost of a healthy diet, excluding Abuja,” Rhodes-Vivour said in a statement on Friday. “Given these factors, a minimum wage of at least N100,000 is necessary for Lagos workers to achieve parity with their counterparts in other states.”
Despite Sanwo-Olu’s claims of increasing the Lagos budget from N600 billion to over N1 trillion and a 94% budget performance rate, Rhodes-Vivour counters that the city still struggles with poor infrastructure, inadequate human capital investment and subpar education outcomes. The public transportation network remains inefficient, and slums and informal communities are on the rise.
