The Federal Government says that the N250,000 demand as new minimum wage by the labour unions, would lead to mass retrenchment of workers and further leave a burden of suffering on the rest of the population.
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, gave the warning while speaking at the opening of the 2024 Synod of the Charismatic Bishops Conference of Nigeria in Abuja on Wednesday,.
Recall that the labour unions refuted President Bola Tinubu’s claims during his Democracy Day broadcast on Wednesday, that an agreement had been reached on the new national minimum wage.
The acting President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC ,Prince Adewale Adeyanju, while attending an International Labour Organisation conference in Geneva, Switzerland, said no agreement had been reached by the Tripartite Committee on the National Minimum Wage.
He said “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,” the NLC said in a statement by Adewale Adeyanju standing in for Joe Ajaero who is in Geneva, Switzerland, for the ILO Conference.
“Our demand still remains ₦250,000 (two hundred and fifty thousand Naira) 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.”
Speaking further,Adeyanju said that the NLC had not received a copy of the document on a new minimum wage submitted to Tinubu adding ,
“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,” he said.
“There was none and it is important that we 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.”
The union maintained that it would not settle for anything less than the N250,000 minimum wage
“We cannot be working and yet remain in abject poverty. We seek justice, equity, and fairness for all Nigerians and this we hope would also drive the actions of Mr. President who promised a Living Wage to Nigerian workers. This is an opportunity to show that he listens to Nigerians as he promised!”
The Federal Government had proposed a N62,000 minimum wage per month for workers which it intends to forward to the National Assembly to codify even as some governors insisted that they would not be able to pay the offer by the Federal Government.
But speaking at the opening of the 2024 Synod of the Charismatic Bishops Conference of Nigeria in Abuja on Wednesday, the information minister said while the Federal Government is not opposed to an increase in minimum wage, such should be done in a way that would not lead to mass job losses .
Idris stated, “As I have repeatedly said, the Federal Government is not opposed to the increase of wages for Nigerian workers but we keep on advocating for a realistic and sustainable wage system for the workers – a wage system that will not undermine the economy, lead to mass retrenchment of workers and jeopardise the welfare of about 200 million Nigerians.
“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 programs like the Presidential CNG initiative come in. That program alone, by replacing or complementing petrol usage with CNG, will cut transportation costs by as much as 50 per cent.”
