President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday ordered the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, to furnish him within 48 hours the cost implications of the new minimum wage.
Tinubu also assured workers and all Nigerians that his administration would present a workable minimum wage within a week.
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, disclosed the President’s directive while briefing State House Correspondents after a meeting the negotiation team had with the president at Aso Rock, on Tuesday.
“All parties to the negotiation of the new minimum wage would work together with the organised labour to present a new minimum wage for Nigerians in one week.
“All of us will work together assiduously within the next one week to ensure that we have a new wage for Nigeria that is acceptable sustainable and also realistic.”
Idris also disclosed that the President had given a marching order that all those who have negotiated on behalf of the Federal government and all those who are representatives of organised private sectors, the sub nationals to come together to have a new wage award that is affordable, sustainable and realistic for Nigerians
The minister said Tinubu is committed to accepting the resolutions of the tripartite committee on the new minimum wage.
“We were all there to look at all issues, and the president has directed the minister of finance to do the numbers and get back to him between today and tomorrow so that we can have figures ready for negotiation with labour. Let me say that the president is determined to go with what the committee has said, and he’s also looking at the welfare of Nigerians.
“The government is not an opponent of labour discussions or wage increases.”
The minister said the president directed that the committee should work together to give Nigerians an “affordable, sustainable, and realistic” minimum wage.
“All of us will work together assiduously within the next one week to ensure that we have a new wage for Nigeria that is acceptable, sustainable, and also realistic,” he said.
Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume, had summoned labour leaders to an emergency meeting after the strike which crippled economic activities on Monday.
At the end of the meeting, it was announced that the Federal Government had offered to pay higher than N60,000 minimum wage.
