Tinubu sends N70,000 new minimum wage bill to National Assembly

President Bola Tinubu transmitted the National Minimum Wage Bill to the National Assembly on Tuesday for deliberation and potential enactment into law.

The President, alongside Organised Labour leadership, reached an agreement last Thursday setting ₦70,000 as the proposed new national minimum wage for Nigerian workers.

The truce between the government and labour unions followed a series of talks between Labour leaders and the President in the last few weeks after months of failed talks between labour organs and a government’s tripartite committee on minimum wage constituted by the President in January.

The committee, which comprised representatives of state and federal governments and the Organised Private Sector (OPS), had proposed ₦62,000 while labour insisted on ₦250,000 as the new minimum wage for workers who currently earn ₦30,000 as minimum wage.

Labour had said ₦30,000 was unsustainable for any worker going by the economic vagaries of inflation and high cost of living, which followed the removal of petrol subsidy by the President.

Despite its initial insistence on ₦250,000 as the new minimum wage, Labour accepted the President’s offer of ₦70,000 last Thursday.

The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, said Labour accepted ₦70,000 and rejected a proposal by President Tinubu to pay ₦250,000 minimum wage with a condition to further increase petrol pump prices.

He also said Labour agreed to the ₦70,000 offer because minimum wage won’t be reviewed once in five years anymore but once every three years.

The transmission of the Wage Bill 2024 to both Chambers of the National Assembly came about six weeks after the President said in his Democracy Day speech on June 12, 2024, that an Executive Bill on the new national minimum wage for workers would be sent to the National Assembly for consideration.