The 2019 Easter holiday will be a happy one for Nigerian workers as the N30,000 new minimum wage was on Thursday, April 18, finally signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari who said that this is to be implemented immediately.
President Buhari’s decisive move invariably means that the signed new minimum wage bill is now a law, which is an upward review of the salaries of all Nigerian civil servants.
According to President Buhari’s aide, Bashir Ahmad, the signed bill is to be implemented with immediate effect. The president also said that the law affects all Nigerian workers.
Although the National Assembly had passed the bill approving N30,000 as the minimum wage for workers, state governors had opposed the decision, claiming that they will be unable to pay workers the fixed amount, Premium Times reports. A source at the Presidential Villa, Ita Enang, the president’s aide on National Assembly (Senate), was in a meeting with President Buhari and will inform newsmen on the details upon conclusion. Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that workers in the Federal Capital Territory had begged President Buhari to sign the minimum wage bill submitted to him by the National Assembly on March 27. Some of the workers on Tuesday, April 16, in Abuja, expressed concern over the delay in signing the bill into law, adding that it was causing unnecessary anxiety.
Kema Nwokedi, a civil servant based in Abuja, said the work of the tripartite committee should be completed by the president.
In an earlier report, Legit.ng reported the Nigerian Senate on Tuesday, March 19, approved the N30,000 minimum wage being agitated for by Nigerian workers under the umbrella of the organised labour in the country. The approval of the minimum wage by the Senate followed the report of an ad hoc committee it set up to look into the issue. The ad hoc committee is headed by Senator Francis Alimikhena.
