Nigeria’s Wages Crisis: Major Showdown Looms As Labour, FG Talk Collapse

By Onota Oghenevwede

Members of Nigeria’s Organised Labour, on Monday, threatened to resume strike action if the Federal Government and National Assembly do not respond to their ₦250,000 minimum wage demand by Tuesday.

BIGPEN NIGERIA (https://bigpenngr.com) reports that the NLC and TUC say they would convene to determine whether to resume the nationwide strike that was temporarily halted last week

Chris Onyeka, who serves as the Assistant General Secretary of the NLC, gave the hint during an appearance on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief show on Monday.

He said, “The Federal Government and the National Assembly have the call now. It is not our call. Our demand is there for them (the government) to look at and send an Executive Bill to the National Assembly, and for the National Assembly to look at what we have demanded, the various fact of the law, and then come up with a National Minimum Act that meets our demands”

“If that does not meet our demand, we have given the Federal Government a one-week notice to look at the issues and that one week expires tomorrow (Tuesday). If after tomorrow, we have not seen any tangible response from the government, the organs of the Organised Labour will meet to decide on what next” Onyeka added

“It was clear what we said. We said we are relaxing a nationwide indefinite strike. It’s like putting a pause on it. So, if you put a pause on something and that organs that govern us as trade unions decide that we should remove that pause, it means that we go back to what was in existence before.”

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Continuing “We have never considered accepting ₦62,000 or any other wage that we know is below what we know is able to take Nigerian workers home. We will not negotiate a starvation wage.

“We have never contemplated ₦100,000 let alone of ₦62,000. We are still at ₦250,000, that is where we are, and that is what we considered enough concession to the government and the other social partners in this particular situation. We are not just driven by frivolities but the realities of the market place; realities of things we buy every day: bag of rice, yam, garri, and all of that.” Onyeka Said