The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has refuted President Bola Tinubu’s claims of an agreement on a new national minimum wage made during his Democracy Day address.
President Tinubu asserted in his national broadcast that a consensus had been reached between the Federal Government and organized labour regarding the new minimum wage. He mentioned that an executive bill would soon be sent to the National Assembly to formalize this agreement.
However, in a statement on Wednesday, acting NLC President Prince Adewale Adeyanju clarified that no agreement had been reached by the Tripartite Committee on the National Minimum Wage by the end of negotiations on June 7, 2024.
Adeyanju highlighted that two figures, N250,000 from Organized Labour and N62,000 from the government and the Organized Private Sector, had been proposed and were supposed to be submitted to the President. He asserted that any contrary claims were inaccurate and unacceptable to Labour.
The statement read, “The NLC would have expected that the advisers of the President would have informed him that no agreement was reached with the federal government and employers on the base figure for a National Minimum Wage or its other components.
“Our demand remains N250,000, and we have not been given any compelling reasons to change this position, which we consider a significant concession by Nigerian workers during the tripartite negotiation process.
“We are therefore surprised by the President’s assertion of a supposed agreement. We believe he may have been misled into thinking there was an agreement with the NLC and TUC. There was none, and it is crucial to clarify this immediately to avoid confusion in the ongoing conversation around the national minimum wage.”
Further details to follow…
