Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President, Joe Ajaero, has revealed why the organized labour accepted the N70,000 minimum wage during the national minimum wage talks at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Ajaero explained on Arise Television’s Morning Show that the organized labour turned down President Bola Tinubu’s offer to increase the price of petroleum products in exchange for the N70,000 minimum wage. Instead, they agreed to explore alternative fuel options, specifically Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), which experts agreed to convert vehicles to at N300,000. However, government officials later rejected this deal, announcing that the conversion would cost N800,000.
Initially, the organized labour, comprising the NLC and the Trade Union Congress, had insisted on a N250,000 minimum wage but ultimately settled for N70,000.
Ajaero clarified that President Tinubu had offered to sponsor labour leaders to visit West African countries to compare fuel prices, citing examples of N2,000, N1,800, and N1,700 per liter. The labour leaders declined, reiterating their focus on minimum wage discussions.
“I have to narrate the scenario to you, and then we now choose the appropriate word, whether it is betrayed, deceit or whatever,” Ajaero said.
“While we were discussing, we stalemated at N62,000, even the states were saying they wouldn’t pay, so there was a stalemate that took us to Mr. President.”
“We insisted on N250,000 and Mr President at the meeting, turned to me and said, ‘Ajaero, you are the person holding my hand from increasing further’.”
“I said, increase what? The president said, ‘Since I said the subsidy is gone, we should have gotten the appropriate price. We should have increased. I want to sponsor you people, labour, to travel to these West African countries and know how much they are paying.”
“Some are paying N2,000, N1,800, N1,700’. As he announced it, we declined immediately that we were not going to take that sponsorship.”
“He said, Okay, I will go to my office for one hour. You guys decide, if you agree for me to increase the price of petroleum products, I will pay you N250,000 minimum wage, if not, you take this N62,000.”
“But we said, Mr. President, no, we can’t sit down here to decide in your office, we will take about one week to go back and discuss and get back to you, which was exactly what happened and we adjourned for one week.”
“When we reconvened, we made it clear to Mr. President, that we didn’t have any mandate to come there to discuss the price of petroleum products or increase, we were only there to discuss minimum wage and minimum wage alone we were going to discuss. And based on that we accepted 70,000 (Naira)”.
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