Nigeria: Press spotlights continuation of nationwide strike, others

The declaration of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) that the ongoing nationwide strike will continue despite the agreement signed with the Federal Government at Monday’s meeting dominates the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Tuesday.
The Punch reports that the Nigeria Labour Congress has disclosed that the ongoing nationwide strike will continue despite the agreement signed with the Federal Government at Monday’s meeting.
The congress, in a post on X, on Tuesday said the industrial action which has grounded the nation’s economy will continue until Tuesday’s meeting of organs of the union where all resolutions of Monday’s meeting are expected to be reviewed.
“Until we hear from our organs at our meeting scheduled for today, June 4, we are still on strike,” the post read.
The PUNCH reports that after a six-hour meeting with the leadership of the organised labour in Abuja, the Federal Government expressed the commitment of President Bola Tinubu to raising the N60,000 offered as the minimum wage.
The agreement stated that, “The President of Nigeria, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, is committed to establishing a National Minimum Wage higher than N60,000; and the Tripartite Committee will convene daily for the next week to finalise an agreeable National Minimum Wage.”
The organised labour also agreed to “immediately hold meetings of its organs to consider this new offer, and no worker would face victimisation as a consequence of participating in the industrial action.”
These resolutions were signed on behalf of the Federal Government by Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, and Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha.
The newspaper says that the Nigerian Government through the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission has granted fresh tax holidays to 12 companies in the first quarter of this year under the Pioneer Status Incentive initiative, increasing the number of total beneficiaries to 104 companies.
The commission disclosed this in its Q1 2024 PSI report released and obtained by our correspondent on Monday.
According to the NIPC report, the 12 companies newly given tax holidays for an initial period of three years include Fouani Nigeria Limited; Neway Power Technology Company Limited; Starich Recycle Technologies Company Limited; Gerawa Rice Mills Limited; Shafa Energy Limited; Mafa Rice Mills Limited; A. A Rano Nigeria Limited (haulage); and A.A Rano Nigeria Limited (Natural gas supplier).
Others are Basma Agric Processing Limited; Flex Films Africa PVT Limited; Addmie Nutrition Limited; and Dufil Prima Foods Plc.
The report also stated that the companies had invested N125.74bn in its operations and production.
In addition, NIPC said it also granted approval in principle to nine other companies, who will join the beneficiary companies after fulfilling certain conditions.
NIPC added that 18 new PSI applications were received in the first quarter of this year, while eight firms applied for an extension of their tax holiday, but only two were granted extensions.
“Approvals-in-principle are subject to the payment of application fees and only take effect after the payment of such fees,” the report stated. The Vanguard newspaper reports that the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun said the Federal Government will make available credit facilities up to ₦1bn at a 9% interest rate to businesses including manufacturers.
Edun disclosed this in an interview on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.
The minister said the current administration recognises the challenge of entrepreneurs to access affordable funds for their businesses, hence the initiative.
He said small-scale entrepreneurs can get up to ₦1m in credit facility while larger businesses can access up to ₦1bn at 9% interest rate, which is cheaper than the current interest rate of 26.25 % recommended to commercial banks by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Edun said, “The emphasis is on ramping up food production, the emphasis is on dealing with food nutrition and food insecurity.
“Likewise, the emphasis is on helping small-scale businesses through grants, and nano enterprises through grant funding.
“That is being rolled out and it’s being done in a manner which, as I said before, is a world-class standard where you identify biometrically the person that is the beneficiary and you pay them through a digital process which you can easily reconcile.
“That is the emphasis, to make sure that we ramp up that speed and the scale of the help that is there even loans are 9% for medium scale enterprises, up to 1 million naira for the smaller enterprises and then for the larger enterprises up to 1 billion naira funding at 9% so that those manufacturing firms can invest grow the economy employ people produce more goods that will help to bring down inflation.”
The minister assured Nigerians that food prices would come down in the coming months.
The newspaper says that opening the week, the equity market halted last session’s winning streak as investors lost N103 billion, following sell-offs in Tier-one banking stocks and cautious trading.
Specifically, sell-offs in FBN Holdings, United Bank For Africa (UBA) and Access Corporation, Fidelity Bank, Transnational Corporation, Nigerian Breweries, WAPCO, ETranzact, among other declined stocks, drove the market’s weak performance.
Consequently, the market capitalisation which opened at N56.172 trillion, lost N103 billion or 0.18 per cent to close at N56.069 trillion.
The All-Share Index also shed 0.18 per cent or 112 points, to settle at 99,118.86, as against 99,300.38 recorded on Friday.
As a result, the Year-To-Date (YTD) return fell to 32.56 per cent.
However, while investors traded cautiously, the losses recorded on the Exchange were not related to the ongoing indefinite strike embarked upon by workers under the auspices of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC).
Reacting, a Stockbroker with Global View Capital Ltd., Mr Haruna Kebira, said that trading on the Exchange was not usually affected by such national industrial actions, except public holidays declared by the Federal Government.
Kebira explained that this was because the Exchange Group did not belong to any workers’ union, hence labour union leaders usually did not interrupt trading on the floor of the Exchange during strikes.
The stockbroker noted that the first week of a new month usually experienced a slowdown of activities that might lead to such losses experienced at the day’s trading.
GIK/APA