On Thursday, July 18, 2024, the federal government announced that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has approved a new national minimum wage of N70,000 from the previous N30,000 national minimum wage.

“President Bola Tinubu has approved a ₦70,000 minimum wage for Nigerian workers with a promise to review the national minimum wage law every three years,” a statement from the president’s special adviser on information and strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said.

“President Tinubu also promised to find ways to assist the private sector and the sub-nationals to pay the minimum wage.

“President Tinubu announced the decisions at the meeting held with leaders of TUC and NLC on Thursday in Abuja, the second time the parties met in 7 days.

“The Labour leaders applauded President Tinubu for the fatherly gesture as the President also promised to use his discretionary powers to meet the demands of university unions demanding unpaid 4 months salaries.”

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The development was met with mixed reactions as critics questioned how beneficial N70,000 can be for civil servant with Nigeria’s 40% inflation rate.

Others questioned the fate of citizens that are not civil servants and expressed displeasure at the decision of the organized labour to drop down from their initial demand of N250,000 as new national minimum wage.

Despite the fact that the president agreed to review the minimum wage every three years as opposed to the previous practice of five years, one cannot help but ponder why government officials have not moved for excess allowances paid into their accounts to be reduced.

The government has been reluctant in cutting down the cost of governance, rather they have made little moves to that regard.