Rivers Crisis: I Won’t Represent 2024 Budget, Fubara Vows

Rivers State governor Sir Siminalayi Fubara, has vowed not to represent the 2024 Appropriation Bill To the Hon. Martins Amaewhule-led House of Assembly.

He said the seats of Amaewhule and 24 others were declared vacant on December 13, 2023, after they dumped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Fubara spoke yesterday when he received on a solidarity visit, the leadership structure, critical stakeholders, opinion leaders, women and youths of Etche and Omuma local government areas led by Ogbakor Etche, the apex socio-cultural organisation of Etche ethnic nationality at Government House, Port Harcourt.

The governor stated that his administration has started preparing the 2025 appropriation bill for presentation to the House of Assembly.

He further stated that the Amaewhule-led lawmakers were truly gone and would eventually return home because they desired it to be so when they defected from the PDP to the APC voluntarily.

Fubara dismissed their recent ranting as noise-making from delusional people and urged the 25 former lawmakers to wake up and see the ship of governance in the state sailing on smoothly.

The governor also said that his administration has started preparing details of the 2025 Appropriation Bill, prioritising education, healthcare and agriculture.

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President Tinubu to meet organised Labour today at the State House Abuja

The Nigeria Labour Congress has said it would press for N250,000 minimum wage during a planned meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the State House, Abuja, on Thursday (today).

The Head of Public Affairs of the NLC, Benson Upah said Labour would insist on its N250,000 proposal during the session with the President.

“We are going to the table with our demand of N250,000 even as the cost of living has since moved up.  We have been very reasonable and patriotic,” Upah told our correspondent.

Labour leaders were invited to a meeting with the President in furtherance of Tinubu’s promise to hold more consultations with stakeholders on the minimum wage.

The proposed meeting is coming about a month after the President said in his Democracy Day speech on June 12, 2024, that an executive bill on the new national minimum wage would soon be sent to the National Assembly for passage.

On June 25, the Federal Executive Council chaired by the President stepped down deliberation on the new minimum wage memo to allow for more engagement with stakeholders ahead of the planned executive bill.

The President took the decision after receiving the report of the Tripartite Committee on Minimum Wage from the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume.

The report, which Akume received from the Chairman of the Tripartite Committee, Bukar Goni Aji, recommended N62,000 minimum wage based on the submissions by federal, state governments and the Organised Private Sector.

Labour at the close of consultations recommended N250,000, but the state governors said they might be unable to pay N62,000.