Nigerian workers have a cause to rejoice as the federal government has announced that a new wage regime will take off from 1 April 2024.
Idris Mohammed, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, said Thursday that the subsisting minimum wage of N30,000 will expire by the end of March 2024.
The labour unions in Nigeria, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress, TUC, have been at loggerheads with the federal government over an upward review of the minimum wage.
The unions argue that N30,000 can no longer pass for a wage given the untold economic hardship Nigerians are facing because of the removal of petrol subsidy.
The unions embarked on a series of strike actions to press home their demands and on 1 October, President Bola Tinubu announced that workers would get an additional N35,000 for three months as a short-term measure to ease the subsidy removal burden.
The labour unions welcomed the development though the wage award is yet to be enforced, while still pushing for an overhaul of the current wage regime.
The Minister of Information said the government is in talks with the NLC and TUC executives on the matter.
“In our negotiation with Labour, we said that the wage issue was not something one could just fix,” Mohammed said.
“A committee that will also involve Labour itself will work on it. The committee is being constituted and we are talking to Labour about it.”
“And by the time this current wage regime expires by the end of March, we will expect that a new wage will begin by April. It is in this wage regime that we will now have a proper salary structure for workers across the length and breadth of Nigeria.”
An NLC executive confirmed the development to The Punch, saying “By 1 April 2024, the current minimum wage will expire. We have all agreed to set up a national wage negotiation committee, and that the committee should comprise all parties.”
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