President Bola Tinubu has approved N70,000 minimum wage for Nigerian workers, with a promise to review the national minimum wage law every three years.
Mohammed Idris, Minister of Information, announced this on Thursday at the Presidential Villa in Abuja after the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress met with the President.
According to Idris, the president announced at the ongoing meeting with leaders of organised labour.
The Special Adviser to President Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, in a statement on X, confirmed the development.
“President Bola Tinubu has approved N70,000 minimum wage for Nigerian workers with a promise to review the national minimum wage law every three years.
“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,” the statement read.
Onanuga further noted that labour leaders praised President Tinubu’s “fatherly gesture”, and the President also vowed to exercise his executive discretion to address the outstanding four months’ salaries owed to university unions.
President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Joe Ajaero, and the President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Comrade Festus Usifo, were at the meeting alongside some members of their unions.
The agreement between the two sides followed a series of talks between labour leaders and the President in the last few weeks after months of failed talks between labour organs and a tripartite committee on minimum wage constituted by the President in January.
The committee which comprised state and federal governments and the Organised Private Sector had proposed N62,000 while labour insisted on N250,000 as the new minimum wage for workers who currently earn N30,000 as minimum wage.
Last Thursday, the President met with labour leaders and called for realistic expectations regarding minimum wage. “You have to cut your coat according to the available cloth. Before we can finalise the minimum wage process, we have to look at the structure,” Tinubu had said.
In his Democracy Day speech on June 12, 2024, the President said that an executive bill on the new national minimum wage for workers would soon be sent to the National Assembly for passage.
