Six Northern States Demanding Minimum Wage Far Below Southwest N794k

Six northern states have reportedly gone against the N794,000 demanded by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in the southwest.

Recall that southwest states had demanded N794 thousand as the new minimum wage.

This development was announced at Thursday’s public hearing of the Tripartite Committee on National Minimum Wage in Ikeja, Lagos.

However, Sahara Reporters disclosed that in a meeting held on the same day in Yola, the Adamawa state capital, the northern states refused to toe the line of their southwest counterparts.

Taraba and Gombe states have proposed a N60,000 new national minimum wage, while those in Bauchi and Adamawa are demanding a 50 per cent increase in the current N30 thousand naira minimum wage.

On their part, members of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Borno and Yobe state said they will accept whatever the presidential tripartite committee on the national minimum wage come up with.

The NLC president, Joe Ajaero, who chaired the meeting, called for a market survey before the workers would reach a consensus on the new minimum wage.

He explained that the current minimum wage was not far from “a starvation wage.

The NLC president said determining a new minimum wage was a waste of time without knowing what the market said.