Tinubu, Organised Labour Leaders Agree on 70,000 Naira As The New Minimum Wage
President Bola Tinubu has approved N70, 000 as the new National Minimum Wage. The approval followed a concluded series of meetings with the leaders of the organised Labour. The meeting which was held at the Presidential Villa Abuja on Thursday had Joe Ajaero, the President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and his Trade Union Congress (TUC) counterpart, Festus Osifo in attendance.
The organised Labour which had been adamant about 250,000 Naira as minimum wage surprisingly accepted 70,000 proposed by the Federal Government. Ajaero said the Labour unions leaders agreed because the minimum wage review would now be every three years instead of five years.
Ajaero said, “What has been announced in terms of the amount of N70,000 happened to be where we are now. But the cool thing about it is that we will not wait for another five years to come on review.
“Rather than settling on a figure that we wait for five years, it’s like we’ll have to now negotiate even two times within five years.
That is one of the reasons why we decided to reach where we are today. Because of the proviso that we can review in the next three years.
“The other one, we came with other issues in the basket, like the issue of SSANU, NASU and others, especially with the affront by the Commissioner of Police FCT, we brought it to Mr President, and talk on the need for that matter to be addressed. And magnanimously, he (Tinubu) asked the agencies concerned to work out the modalities for the payment of those workers in the universities.”
Also, Osifo said, “The President (Tinubu) made a pronouncement or announcement of N70,000. By next week, he should put the finishing touches to the bill and the transmission to the National Assembly.
“But why this became a catch is because we, from Organised Labour, have been pushing that the issue of five years review is a long time, that a lot of economic indices may have changed because we are in an era where things are moving very fast in terms of both macro and micro economic policies.
“But there is a caveat that this is going to be done every three years, the next review should be in three years. And after that pronouncement, we from labour received what the President has promised.”
