Nigerian workers receive N70,000 new minimum wage

The Federal Government’s new minimum wage for Nigerian workers has been confirmed.

Benson Upah, spokesperson for the Nigeria Labour Congress, and Tommy Etim, Deputy President of the Trade Union Congress, confirmed this information in separate releases on Thursday.

Upah and Etim’s comments match with a Daily Post exclusive scoop from Thursday, which stated that the Federal Government had begun to pay the N70,000 minimum wage.

Upah urged businesses nationwide to follow the Federal Government’s lead in response to the new minimum wage payment schedule.

“Yes, I think so. We ask other entities to emulate this example”, he said.

Similarly, TUC’s Etim said, “FG’s committee on consequential adjustments already released a template, so, no one has any moral ground to delay the payment of the minimum wage. We now advise that all other parties follow suit and commence the payment of the new minimum wage.”

Additionally, a government worker who works in the Head of Government Service’s office but is not permitted to talk acknowledged that he has been paid the minimum wage for September 2024.

“I got an alert around 2 pm on Thursday. I am hoping the arrears will come too”, he told DAILY POST.

Some federal employees verified that they received an additional N40,000 as a consequence adjustment to their previous compensation.

The implication was that over 1.2 million federally paid workers had begun to receive the new wage.

On Tuesday, Ekpo Nta, Chairman of the National Salaries, Incomes, and Wages Commission, stated that the government had approved an upward revision of the consolidated public service salary structure, CONPSS, in accordance with the Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act, 2024.

Topnaija recalled that On July 18, 2024, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu approved a new minimum salary of N70,000.

The Senate passing the bill into law followed Tinubu’s support.

The N70,000 minimum salary represented a 100 percent increase over the N30,000 given under President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

Meanwhile, the introduction of salary increases for Nigerian workers occurred at a time when prices for goods and services had skyrocketed, with headline and food inflation rates of 32.15 and 37.52 percent, respectively, in August 2024.