The Nigerian Worker and Minimum Wage

President Muhammadu Buhari recently signed the new National Minimum Wage bill into law to provide for N30,000 as minimum wage in Nigeria.

The achievement of a new minimum wage does not however look like a full victory for the suffering workers who are at the bottom rung of the ladder because there are some proviso accompanying the bill.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President in charge of Senate liaison, Senator Ita Enang, who stated that the payment of the N30,000 to workers would begin immediately said that the bill “makes it compulsory for all employers of labour in Nigeria to pay to their workers the sum of N30,000”.

According to him:

“This excludes persons who are employing less than 25 workers; persons who work in a ship which sails out of jurisdiction and other persons who are in other kinds of regulated employment which are accepted by the Act”. By implication, staff of many SMEs and small companies, including your maiguards, gardeners, drivers and other personal staff cannot argue with you over minimum wage.

So it’s not yet Uhuru for ALL workers as far as the minimum wage is concerned.

It is also a different matter whether the new pay can make any difference in the lives of the affected workers.

Nigerian workers have never received their minimum wage approvals on a platter of gold. They have always had to struggle for it and by the time the amount they are agitating for is approved, market forces and other environmental issues would have made the new figure useless.

As we mark Workers Day today, 1st of May, it is good to look at how the Nigerian workers has struggled for their pay which has never really taken them home.

There have been several minimum wage agreements in Nigeria.

In 1981 when Shehu Shagari was Nigerian president, the labour unions then led by Alhaji Hassan Sunmonu  asked for a N300 per month minimum wage. After much agitation and strikes, an agreement was reached for a N125 per month wage. Note the amount – ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE NAIRA per month. It shows you how strong the Naira was then.

 

 

 

 

 

The next minimum wage negotiation was concluded in 1990 when the Paschal Bafyau-led Nigeria Labour Congress demanded another increase in pay and got N250 as national minimum wage.

During the regime of General Abacha, things seemed to have gone so bad economically that when General Abdulsalami Abubakar briefly held fort, there was wage increase to N3,000. Of course, the Naira had lost a lot of its value.

When Olusegun Obasanjo became president in 1999, there was a battle royale between his government and the NLC led by Adams Oshiomhole and this yielded a minimum wage of N5,500 for state workers and N7,500 for federal and oil-producing states workers.

The N18,000 minimum wage that has been in existence till the latest bill signed into law by Muhammadu Buhari came into force in 2010 with Goodluck Jonathan as President.

The expectations were that there will be constant review of the national minimum wage every five years but like every thing Nigerian, this has not worked.

Nigerian workers have always fought for their rights. Let’s hope that this new law will be followed by more worker-friendly negotiations for future minimum wage increases that will take into consideration Naira strength, market forces and other applicable internationally acceptable indices.

 

Image Credit: Twitter.com

 

Epa Ogie Eboigbe, veteran journalist, broadcaster and public affairs specialist writes and analyses current and historical issues with a ‘wise pen’.