President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday transmitted a national minimum wage bill to the House of Representatives in the National Assembly for consideration and passage.
The request was contained in a letter addressed to the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio and read by him at Plenary.
President Tinubu’s Request has been Committed to the Committee of a Whole for the lawmakers to deliberate and assess the content of the Bill.
The President and the leadership of the Organised Labour had last Thursday agreed on ₦70,000 as the new minimum wage for Nigerian workers.
Information Minister Mohammed Idris had said, “the new national minimum that Mr President is expected to submit to the National Assembly is ₦70,000”.
The truce between the government and labour sides 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 tripartite committee on minimum wage constituted by the President in January.
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The committee, which comprised state and federal governments and the Organised Private Sector, 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 Bola Tinubu to pay ₦250,000 minimum wage on a condition to increase petrol 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.
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