Minimum Wage: N70,000 No Longer Sustainable – Gbajabiamila

Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, has said the Federal government will review the minimum wage of government workers to meet up with the current economic situation when the time comes.

Speaking in Abuja during the Good Governance Summit, 2026 organised by the Working People United (WoPU) with the theme: “Policies and Governance: Impact on the Working People”, he said the government has identified that the current N70,000 minimum wage was no longer sustainable amid the present realities faced by Nigerians.

He said the N70,000 wage, which was a milestone in 2024, must be honestly reassessed against today’s realities, hence, “this administration will approach that endeavor not as an adversary of labour, but as a partner”.

He said the present administration “had delivered a new national minimum wage. In July 2024 President Bola Tinubu signed into law a minimum wage of N70,000, with more than double the 30,000 naira that workers had endured for years and recognising that the cost of living does not stand still, the President reduced the strategic review cycle from five years to three years, so that wages may keep closer pace with economic reality.”

Gbajabiamila said the present administration has not had its three years of governance easy.

In his goodwill message, Minister of Labour and Employment, Mohammad Dingyadi, said governance was not just about written policies but they must be properly implemented to have impact on the workers.

“Governance is not merely about policies written in documents or programmes announced from government offices, the true measure of governance is the extent to which policies translate into improved livelihoods, decentral of increased productivity, social protection, economic opportunities, and dignity for the working people,” Dingyadi said.

The National Coordinator of WoPU, Williams Akporeha, said no nation develops without an effective working people.

“There’s no economy without the working people, there’s no productivity without the working people, and there’s no national development; look around this room. What we are witnessing today under the banner of working people united goes beyond the standard political gathering. It is an unprecedented historic convergence of Nigeria’s productive engine,” he said. (Daily trust)