The Federal government of Nigeria and the Organized Labour on Thursday settled for N70,000 as the new minimum wage.
The new national minimum wage was arrived at during the meeting between President Bola Tinubu, members of the government team on the tripartite committee and the leadership of the Organized Labour.
Before arriving at the new national minimum wage, the government and the private sector offered N62,000, while the organized labour demanded N250,000.
Speaking after the meeting on Thursday in Abuja, Nigeria’s Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, said that President Tinubu agreed to pay N70,000 from the initial offer of N62,000.
“Today’s (Wednesday) a happy day for Nigeria. You recall that last week, we had a meeting here and the Organized Private Sector and the sub-nationals have also held their various meetings with Mr. President, following the submission of the tripartite agreement to Mr. President.
“We’re happy to announce that both the Federal Government and Organized Labour have agreed on an increase on the N62,000. The new national minimum wage that we expect to submit to the National Assembly for legislation is N70,000,” he said.
In his speech, the President of the NLC, Comrade Joe Ajaero, said that the organized Labour accepted the President’s offer of N70,000 with mixed feelings because of the prevailing economic circumstances in the country.
He said: “Well, we were here last week and we’re here now. What has been announced in terms of the amount of N70,000 happened to be where we are now. But the good thing about it is that we will not wait for another five years to come for review.
“Rather, than settling on a figure that we wait for five years, is like we’ll have to now negotiate even two times within five years, to go up. That is one of the reasons, you know, we decided to reach where we are today because of the proviso that ‘you 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 FCT Commissioner of Police, we brought it to Mr President and talked on the need for that matter to be addressed,” the report by Vanguard newspaper on Friday quoted the NLC President as saying.
GIK/APA
New Minimum Wage: Nigerian Govt, Organised Labour settle for N70,000
