Atiku Abubakar Demands Immediate Minimum Wage Increase in Nigeria
Atiku Abubakar urged President Bola Tinubu to raise the national minimum wage, arguing the current ₦70,000 monthly pay is insufficient to cover basic living costs.
Presidential candidate for the African Democratic Congress Atiku Abubakar has called on President Bola Tinubu to immediately increase Nigeria's national minimum wage. Backing demands from the Nigeria Labour Congress, Abubakar argued that the current ₦70,000 monthly wage is inadequate to sustain working families amid a ruthless economic squeeze.
Abubakar highlighted the erosion of purchasing power following the removal of the petrol subsidy, which he claims caused food, transport, and rent prices to soar. He noted that while the nominal wage rose from ₦30,000, the actual volume of petrol a worker can afford dropped from 118 litres in April 2023 to just 50 litres currently, based on a price of ₦1,400 per litre.
Contrasting Nigeria's wage floor with higher minimum wages in other African oil-producing nations like Libya, Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon, Abubakar challenged the federal government to provide a definitive answer to labour leaders instead of holding repetitive meetings. He pledged that if elected in 2027, he would raise the wage floor from his first day in office and implement a targeted production subsidy for petroleum products refined within Nigeria to lower pump prices.
