President Bola Tinubu has approved N70,000 as the new minimum wage for workers in the country.

Tinubu announced the minimum wage during a meeting with leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) at the presidential villa on Thursday.

Joe Ajaero, NLC president and Festus Osifo, president of the TUC, were at the meeting.

Speaking with State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, Nkiru Onyejeocha, minister of state for labour, said Tinubu and the labour leaders agreed that the time limit for the review of the minimum wage should be reduced to three years.

Onyejeocha added that the parties agreed that the time limit of five years for review is too long.

On his part, Ajaero said the N70,000 offer was accepted because of the provision that the minimum wage will be reviewed every three years.

“We are taking this with mixed feelings because of the situation of the economy,” the NLC president said.

Osifo said the president promised that the minimum wage bill would be transmitted to the national assembly next week.

The TUC president said the labour leaders appealed to the president to intervene in the withheld salaries controversy of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU).

BACKGROUND

Over the past few months, the federal and state governments, organised labour, and the private sector have been negotiating a new minimum wage.

Initially, organised labour proposed N615,500 and N494,000 as the new national minimum wage, citing inflation and the prevailing economic hardship.

The federal government proposed N62,000, which was rejected by organised labour.

The labour unions had insisted on N250,000 as the living wage.

The federal government asked the labour unions to demand a more realistic and sustainable minimum wage.

On June 7, governors under the aegis of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) said the N60,000 minimum wage for workers is not sustainable.

On June 10, the tripartite committee submitted its report to George Akume, secretary to the government of the federation (SGF).

The Cable