The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) expressed frustration on Wednesday as it revealed that over 30 states, constituting about 90 percent of the country, had defaulted in paying the N35,000 wage award as agreed upon by the Federal Government and organized labour.
Amid this uproar, retired pensioners from the Federal Civil Service threatened nationwide protests due to the government’s failure to fulfill their wage award.
Labour leaders from various states including Sokoto, Kano, Benue, and Bayelsa reported to The PUNCH that their respective state governments had not implemented the wage award. Furthermore, in states like Gombe, Ogun, and Osun, payments as low as N15,000 or N10,000 were being made, according to the leaders.
Chris Onyeka, the Assistant General Secretary of the NLC, expressed dismay in an interview, stating that state governors had disregarded negotiations and unilaterally assigned workers a mere N10,000 without proper negotiation processes.
The payment of the wage award was part of the agreement reached between organized labour and the Federal Government as a means to mitigate the impact of the removal of fuel subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) also known as petrol.
In 2023, the NLC and Trade Union Congress (TUC) reached an agreement with the Federal Government, wherein the government committed to paying a N35,000 wage award to workers for six months and reviewing the minimum wage in 2024.
President Bola Tinubu appealed to state governors in Niger State on Tuesday to continue paying workers the wage award until negotiations on a new minimum wage were concluded.
However, Onyeka lamented that the majority of states, representing over 30 states, were not honoring the wage award, emphasizing that it should not be treated as a unilateral decision but should involve negotiation processes.
In Gombe State, the General Secretary of the NLC, Ibrahim Fika, disclosed that workers had only received N10,000 so far, indicating that the wage award had not been implemented by the state government.
The situation was similar in Sokoto and Kebbi states, where workers had not received any wage award payments from their respective governments.
While negotiations were underway in both states, the outcome was yet to be disclosed publicly.
In response, a senior aide to the Sokoto State governor assured that the government was employing various measures to alleviate the economic hardship faced by workers, including the recent announcement of half-salary payments during the month of Ramadan. However, the issue of the wage award remains unresolved.
