In his nationwide broadcast to mark Democracy Day, President Bola Tinubu claimed that an agreement had been reached on new national minimum salaries, which was rejected by organised labour.
Tinubu stated that the Federal Government and organised labour had reached an agreement on the long-debated new minimum wage.
Tinubu disclosed in his nationwide broadcast to commemorate 2024 Democracy Day in Abuja on Wednesday that an executive bill will be forwarded to the nationwide Assembly shortly to formalise the new minimum wage accord.
In responding to labour union demands, the President underlined that his administration preferred a democratic approach over a dictatorial one.
However, in a statement on Wednesday, the acting President of Nigeria Labour Congress, Prince Adewale Adeyanju, said there was no agreement reached by the Tripartite Committee on the National Minimum Wage at the time negotiations ended on Friday, June 7, 2024.
Adeyanju stated that rather, two figures such as N250,000 from Organised Labour and N62,000 from the government and Organised Private Sector, were arrived at and ought to have been submitted to the President.
The labour leader asserted that anything to the contrary was not only doctored but won’t be accepted by Labour.
The statement reads, “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.
“Our demand still remains N250,000, (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.
“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.
There was none and we must 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.”
