THIS is a debate that never goes away for too long: what is due to Nigerian workers? The renewed agitation over workers’ wages, triggered by a fresh Nigeria Governors’ Forum proposal to raise the national minimum wage to N100,000 per month, only confirms that the country is trapped in an endless cycle of wage adjustments that inflation quickly renders meaningless.
This means that the issue is not just about the size of the minimum wage. Rather, it is about whether Nigerian workers can afford to live with dignity.
That is why the conversation must shift from a statutory minimum wage to a genuine living-wage regime – and a stable economy.
The proposal by the Chairman of the NGF, Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, has already been rejected by organised labour.
The Nigeria Labour Congress, through its spokesman, Benson Upah, dismissed N100,000 as grossly inadequate and argued that, given current realities, a realistic wage would be closer to N1 million per month!
The Federal Workers Forum also condemned the proposal as a “Greek gift,” insisting that it bears little relationship to prevailing economic conditions.
While the NLC’s N1 million demand may appear excessive to many, the underlying argument deserves serious attention.
The current N70,000 minimum wage approved in July 2024 has already been overtaken by inflation. Like every previous wage increase in Nigeria’s history, its real value has been rapidly eroded.
The country’s minimum wage trajectory elucidates this. It rose from N18,000 in 2011 to N30,000 in 2019 and then to N70,000 in 2024. Yet each increase was followed by soaring inflation that wiped out most of the gains.
It is alleged that some states have yet to implement the minimum wage for grassroots workers, local government employees and primary school teachers.
Dataphyte estimates that the real value of the previous N30,000 wage had collapsed to barely N11,708 by mid-2024. The current N70,000 wage is clearly following the same path.
The CBN reported that workers lost N2.79 trillion in purchasing power in 2024 alone due to inflation. That explains why workers who celebrated the 133 per cent wage increase in 2024 now find themselves struggling to survive less than two years later.
Nothing illustrates the crisis more vividly than the National Bureau of Statistics and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition Cost of a Healthy Diet data.
According to an analysis by The Whistler, a healthy diet for one adult now costs an average of N1,541 per day or N46,230 per month, excluding meal preparation costs.
This means that a worker earning N70,000 is left with just N23,770 after feeding only himself.
For an average Nigerian household of 5.06 persons, the monthly cost of a healthy diet rises to N233,923 — equivalent to 334 per cent of the current minimum wage.
In other words, the average worker cannot afford the minimum nutritional requirements recommended by global health standards.
Even the governors’ proposed N100,000 wage would still leave most families far below the subsistence level. It is therefore difficult to dispute labour’s argument that Nigeria’s wage structure has become detached from economic reality.
However, raising wages alone cannot solve the problem.
The organised private sector has raised legitimate concerns about its ability to pay across the board.
The president of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Leye Kupoluyi, said the private sector should not be compelled to pay the same wage level as the government if businesses could not afford it.
The Director-General of the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association, Adewale Oyerinde, points out that the process for arriving at a National Minimum Wage is “rooted in widely acclaimed tripartite negotiations and consultation and not just political statements, without any empirical data to back up the quantum of increase.”
The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise warned that many businesses are already struggling under crushing energy costs, logistics bottlenecks, foreign exchange challenges, multiple taxation and weak consumer demand. All this needs to be addressed.
Indeed, any wage increase that is unsupported by productivity growth and economic reforms risks fuelling another inflationary spiral. Businesses facing higher wage bills often pass costs to consumers, thereby worsening the very inflation the wage increase seeks to offset.
Nigeria must therefore avoid the false choice between workers’ welfare and business survival.
The real objective should be a living-wage framework tied to measurable economic indicators and supported by aggressive cost-of-living reduction policies.
This is the model increasingly adopted across many countries. In South Africa, the national minimum wage is approximately 28.79 rand per hour, translating to well over N250,000 monthly at prevailing exchange rates.
Algeria’s minimum wage is around 20,000 dinars (N204,000) monthly, while Egypt recently increased its public-sector minimum wage to 7,000 Egyptian pounds (N184,000).
Kenya’s minimum wage varies by sector and location, but the average of 16,113 Kenyan Shillings (N169,500) remains significantly higher in purchasing power terms than Nigeria’s.
Nigeria should not be setting wage policy as though inflation were a temporary inconvenience.
Food inflation remains the principal driver of household hardship, standing at 16.06 per cent YoY and higher than headline inflation of 15.69 per cent as of April.
Massive investments in agricultural productivity, rural roads, storage infrastructure and security in farming communities are urgently needed.
The absurd situation where healthy diets are more expensive in some rural communities than in urban centres because of poor roads must end.
The government must also address transport costs through investments in rail, inland waterways and public transportation systems.
Electricity tariffs remain a major burden on both households and businesses. Lowering energy costs would immediately improve living standards while enhancing business competitiveness.
Investments in health by ramping up health insurance enrolment and better access to quality care, and in education, via massive infrastructure improvements and teacher recruitment, will reduce household expenditure on these essentials.
Furthermore, labour’s argument regarding improved government revenues deserves scrutiny.
Since the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East, higher oil prices have boosted Nigeria’s earnings. It is estimated that the windfall has added more than N5 trillion to government coffers.
Whether that figure is an exaggeration or not, governments are receiving historically high FAAC allocations, averaging over a 50 per cent surge for states in 2025 and all tiers sharing up to N2 trillion in 2026.
Nigerians deserve to see some direct benefit from these gains through targeted subsidies for food production and transportation, public transit and essential services.
More fundamentally, wage determination should no longer depend on sporadic political negotiations every few years.
The National Minimum Wage Act should be amended to provide for automatic annual adjustments linked to inflation, productivity and cost-of-living indicators. Such a mechanism would prevent workers from suffering prolonged erosion of purchasing power before the government responds.
Above all, policymakers must remember that they are insulated from the hardships confronting ordinary citizens.
Governors, legislators, political appointees and senior public officials enjoy humongous allowances, subsidised accommodation, official vehicles, security details and generous expense accounts.
They do not queue for transport. They do not worry about school fees after buying food. They do not feel inflation in the same way as the average worker.
That disconnect explains why debates over N70,000, N100,000 or even N1 million often miss the central issue.
The goal of wage policy is not simply to keep workers alive so that the job is done. It is to ensure that honest labour can provide a decent standard of living.
punch.ng
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