THE Federal Government has urged the labour unions, to negotiate a new minimum wage that would not lead to mass retrenchment of workers, or jeopardise the welfare of about 200 million Nigerians
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, while speaking at the opening of the 2024 Synod of the Charismatic Bishops Conference of Nigeria in Abuja on Wednesday, noted that the ₦250,000 minimum wage demanded by labour, could undermine the economy.
This is as 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.
Acting President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Prince Adewale Adeyanju, while attending an International Labour Organisation conference in Geneva, Switzerland, said as of the time negotiations ended on June 7, no agreement had been reached by the Tripartite Committee on the National Minimum Wage.
“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.”
The NLC said it had not reached any agreement with the Federal Government on a new minimum wage.
According to the union, it had not received a copy of the document on a new minimum wage submitted to Tinubu.
“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.”
