The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has disputed President Bola Tinubu’s assertion that a new national minimum wage agreement has been reached. The NLC maintains its demand for a minimum wage of N250,000.
In a nationwide broadcast on Democracy Day, Tinubu claimed that a consensus had been achieved between the federal government and organized labor on the new minimum wage.
He mentioned that an executive bill would be sent to the National Assembly to formalize this agreement.
He said, “In this spirit, we have negotiated in good faith and with open arms with organised labour on a new national minimum wage.
“We shall soon send an executive bill to the National Assembly to enshrine what has been agreed upon as part of our law for the next five years or less.”
However, in a statement issued yesterday, NLC’s acting President, Prince Adewale Adeyanju, stated that the Tripartite Committee on the National Minimum Wage had not reached an agreement by the end of negotiations on Friday, June 7, 2024.
He said, “Our demand still remains N250,000 only, and we have not been given any compelling reasons to change this position which we consider a great concession by Nigerian workers during the tripartite negotiation process.”
The NLC emphasized the need to clarify this for President Tinubu, Nigerians, and stakeholders, suggesting that the president might have been misinformed about the outcome of the negotiations.
The statement reads in part: “We reiterate that it will be extremely difficult for Nigerian workers to accept any national minimum wage figure that approximates to a starvation wage. We cannot be working and yet remain in abject poverty.
“While the president may have accurately recounted parts of our democratic journey’s history, it is evident that he has been misinformed regarding the outcome of the wage negotiation process.
“The NLC would have expected that the advisers of the president would have told him that we neither reached any agreement with the federal government and the employers on the base figure for a national minimum wage nor on its other components.
“We are, therefore, surprised at the submission of Mr President over a supposed agreement. We believe that he may have been misled into believing that there was an agreement with the NLC and TUC. There was none, and we must let the president, Nigerians and other national stakeholders understand this immediately to avoid a mix-up in the ongoing conversation around the national minimum wage. We have also not seen a copy of the document submitted to him and will not accept any doctored document.”
Meanwhile, Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, remarked that the federal government would not endorse a minimum wage that could lead to mass layoffs, harm the economy, or jeopardize the welfare of approximately 200 million Nigerians.
Speaking at the 2024 Synod of the Charismatic Bishops Conference of Nigeria in Abuja, the minister reiterated that while the government supports wage increases, it advocates for a realistic and sustainable wage system.
“We want the labour unions to understand that the relief that Nigerians are expecting, and that they fully deserve, will not come only in the form of an increase in wages. It will also come as efforts to reduce the cost of living and to ensure that more money stays in the pockets of Nigerians.
“And this is where programmes like the Presidential CNG Initiative come in. That programme alone, by replacing or complementing petrol usage with CNG, will cut transportation costs by as much as 50 per cent.”
