The Organised Labour is pushing for an annual increase in the minimum wage paid to workers in Nigeria so as to reflect the inflationary trend.

President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Festus Osifo, made this known when he appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday, January 1, 2025, Channels TV reports.

The minimum wage for workers in Nigeria currently is N70,000. Before it was increased in 2024 after months of negotiations and back-and-forth, the national minimum wage had been at N30,000 since 2019. However, Labour has argued that the gains of last year’s minimum wage increase were promptly wiped by petrol price hike and high inflation rate.

“What we are pushing on for Labour is that instead of you (the government) waiting for five years to increase the minimum wage, you will now look at the inflation of the last five years and try to make some adjustments, why can’t we reflect the inflation on an annual basis?” Osifo said.

He said members of his organisation as well as their colleagues in the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) had begun talks in that regard.

“For example, we have entered January 2025, by the 15th of January 2025, the National Bureau of Statistics is going to release the inflation figure for December,” Osifo said.

“So, what we are pushing for as Labour is that, if, for example, the inflation figure is 35 per cent, apply that 35 per cent to the N70,000 minimum wage so that it will become reflective of what the true value is.

“When we get to 2026, you will also do similar application. That is actually what we are pushing. We shouldn’t be waiting for five years,” he said.

The TUC president said the new Minimum Wage Act now prescribes three years to do those adjustments, but suggested they could be done systemically “by applying the inflation as of December of the preceding year to what the minimum wage is”.

“This is part of the position that we are also going to canvass this year. We started the conversation last year but we will continue it in 2025,” he said.