Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN) has said that both the federal and state governments can pay the new national minimum wage if looted funds are recovered and channeled towards that direction.

Falana stated this during an interview with ChannelsTV on Thursday night.

The senior lawyer asked the Nigerian authorities to muster the political will to pay the minimum wage.

“The state governments that are saying they have no money to pay, the money is there. All they need, including the Federal Government, is to muster the political will to collect and recover money either looted or withheld from the federation account,” Falana said.

Labour and the Nigerian government have been at loggerheads over a new minimum wage for workers in the country.

Both labour and government are yet to reach an agreement on the new minimum wage with the latter rejecting the former’s N62,000 offer.

During the last meeting held by the Tripartite Committee on the New Minimum Wage on Friday in Abuja, labour reduced its demand to N250,000 from N494,000, while the Federal Government increased its offer from N60,000 to N62,000.

The proposed minimum wage may have to wait until 2 July as the National Assembly is on break.