Nigeria Rejects $70.00 Minimum wage Salary for the Citizens

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has rejected the N27,000 Equivalent of $70.00 new National Minimum Wage adopted by the National Council of State on Tuesday.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has rejected the N27,000 new National Minimum Wage adopted by the National Council of State on Tuesday.

Dr Peter Ozo-Eson, the NLC General Secretary, made this known to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.

According to him, the council has no jurisdiction determining another amount after a Tripartite Committee has submitted its report.

 It is abysmal of government to be delaying the submission of an Executive Bill to the National Assembly and by wrongfully adopting N27,000 through the council of states,” he said.

Ozo-Eson, however, said the NLC has called an emergency National Executive Council meeting for Friday to weigh on the deadline given to government within which to submit an executive bill to the National Assembly.

The NLC general scribe added that the Federal Government was only projecting a shutdown of the economy with its latest action.

This is because workers should not be held responsible for any development after its NEC meeting on Friday,’’ he said. 

The National Council of State has approved the sum of N27,000 as the new national minimum wage for workers across the country.

The decision was reached at the council’s meeting which took place at the Presidential Villa on Tuesday, January 22, 2019, with former presidents and military heads of states, governors and leadership of the National Assembly in attendance.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, disclosed the decision to State House correspondents after the meeting. He said the Federal Government will increase the amount to N30,000 for federal workers while noting that state governors can do the same for state workers.

“The bill approved by the Council include N30,000 minimum wage for Federal workers and N27,000 for states and private sector,” he announced.

The minister also revealed that the council approved the frequency of review of five years for the minimum wage and also created an exemption for organisations with less than 25 employees.

The decision comes just two weeks after President Muhammadu Buhariinaugurated a Technical Advisory Committee on the implementation of an increase in the National Minimum Wage.

The country’s organised labour has been negotiating with the Buhari administration for over a year to increase the minimum wage for workers nationwide.

In November 2018, he received the recommendation of a tripartite committee he had set up in 2017 to propose a new minimum wage. The president expressed his commitment towards getting the recommendation passed by the National Assembly as soon as possible, with the new wage pegged at N30,000.

State governors have been the most vocal critics of the minimum wage increment as many have lamented that they cannot afford to pay the proposed N30,000 without having to resort to tough measures as drastic as a nationwide downsizing of the workforce.