OPS tasks Tinubu on promises as N70,000 minimum wage becomes law

President Bola Tinubu has signed the newly approved national minimum wage into law.

Apparently in a desperate move to halt the planned protest on August 1 and pacify aggrieved workers, the President assented to the law yesterday during the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting attended by the leadership of the National Assembly.

The presence of Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, alongside other key leaders of the Assembly at FEC was an unusual development since the advent of the present democratic dispensation.

The passage into law of the new wage comes amid heightened tension over the planned protest by some Nigerians against the rising cost of living in the country.

Appealing to those behind the protest to refrain from violence, Akpabio attributed the prevailing hardship faced by Nigerians to many years of maladministration brought by previous governments on the people.

“I think this is a great day for workers in the country. We are not only doubling the minimum wage, we have added something on top. Initially, it was N30,000, now it is N70,000. This is the minimum, not maximum. Any employer that has a capacity can pay as much as they want. But no Nigerian worker will offer services and be paid anything less than N70,000 from today. That is the implication of this act. It applies all over the nation,” he said.

But labour has said there is nothing to rejoice over in the signing of the N70,000 new national minimum wage. This is just as the Organised Private Sector (OPS) has reminded Tinubu of the promises he made to businesses and the subnationals so that the implementation of the N70,000 minimum wage would commence as quickly as possible without hitches.

Labour said what the Federal Government proposed to pay workers was not something that any worker should go and begin to celebrate, stating that organised labour bent itself backward to accept the N70,000 minimum wage.

President of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), Festus Osifo, urged the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) to quickly come up with a just and fair consequential adjustment. He implored states and local governments to immediately implement the same to re-inflate the purchasing power of the battered worker.

President of Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, while commending Tinubu for expeditiously signing the bill, said his support would go a long way to mitigate the challenges the private sector might encounter in the course of meeting up with payment of new salaries.