Nigeria Senate approves N70,000 minimum wage bill with 3 years review interval

The Nigeria Senate has approved the bill to increase the national minimum wage from N30,000 to N70,000, effectively making it a law.

The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, announced the approval following the third reading of the bill during a plenary session in Abuja on Tuesday.

The bill, which was proposed by President Bola Tinubu after meeting with the heads of organized labour last week, also included a reduction of the review timeline of the minimum wage from 5 years to 3 years.

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Speaking at the plenary session on Tuesday, Akpabio read out the intent of the bill and ruled for its approval.

“Distinguished colleagues, a bill to amend the National Minimum Wage Act 2019 and to increase the national minimum wage from N30,000 to N70,000 and review the time for periodic review of the national minimum wage from years to 3 years and for related matters 2024.

“Distinguished colleagues, the third reading has been taken and passed,” Akpabio said.

The bill, which scaled second and third readings at both legislative chambers in the National Assembly, just minutes after it was transmitted by President Bola Tinubu, was instantly passed separately by the red and green chambers.

In a unanimous vote after a clause consideration in the Committee of the Whole, the National Minimum Wage Bill scaled third reading and was passed at the Senate.

The House also passed the bill immediately just like the Senate.

President Tinubu is expected to sign the bill into law in the coming days.

Backstory

Earlier, the President sent the National Minimum Wage Bill to the National Assembly for their deliberation and approval.

In separate communications to the Senate and the House of Representatives, the President urged swift consideration of a bill to amend the National Minimum Wage Act, 2019. The proposed amendment seeks to raise the minimum wage from N30,000 to N70,000 and reduce the interval for periodic wage reviews from five years to three years.

Nairametrics earlier reported that Tinubu and leaders of Organised Labour reached an agreement setting N70,000 as the new minimum wage for Nigerian workers.

Initially, the federal government proposed a sum of N62,000, but labour insisted on N250,000, resulting in a deadlock between both parties.

The truce between the government and labour sides followed a series of talks between labour leaders and the President in the last few weeks after months of failed talks between labour organs and a tripartite committee on minimum wage constituted by the President in January.

The committee, which comprised state and federal governments and the Organised Private Sector, had proposed N62,000 while labour insisted on N250,000 as the new minimum wage for workers who currently earn N30,000 as minimum wage.

Labour had said N30,000 was unsustainable for any worker going by the economic vagaries of inflation and high cost of living which followed the removal of petrol subsidy by the President.