Nigeria’s president Bola Tinubu on Thursday, 18 July 2024, approved N70,000 as the new minimum wage for workers across the country.
This approval by the president comes on the heels of his meeting with the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
The Nigerian government and organised Labour have had a long-standing battle for a new minimum wage for workers considering the rising cost of living and the removal of fuel subsidy on May 29, 2023.
While the leadership of the organised labour had demanded a benchmark of N600,000 as minimum wage, the government in several meetings on the instance of the Labour Minister described the demand as unreaslitic.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, in June 2024, while appealing to the organised labour to shelve its industrial action said some states were yet to implement the old N30,000 minimum wage.
Onyejeocha noted that the Federal Government is not the sole decider of a new minimum wage as it must be determined by state governments and the Organised Private Sector.
However, in a turn of events on Thursday, July 18, 2024, President Tinubu approved a new wage with a promise to review the national minimum wage law every three years.
Bayo Onanuga, the president’s special adviser on information and strategy in a post on X said, “President Tinubu also promised to find ways to assist the private sector and the sub-nationals to pay the minimum wage.
“President Tinubu announced the decisions at the meeting held with leaders of TUC and NLC on Thursday in Abuja, the second time the parties met in 7 days,” Onanuga posted on X.
He also added that members of the union appreciated President Tinubu’s “fatherly gesture” as he pledged to exercise his executive discretion to address the outstanding four months’ salaries owed to various university unions.
