President Bola Tinubu has disclosed that all arrangements have been concluded to send an executive bill to the National Assembly (NASS) to pass a law for a new national minimum wage to be paid workers in the country.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports President Tinubu made this known in his 2024 Democracy Day national broadcast to Nigerians on Wednesday.
“We shall soon send our executive bill to the National Assembly to enshrine what has been agreed upon as part of our law for the next five years or less,” President Tinubu said.
Recall that organised labour in the country and the government have been embroiled in a tussle on an acceptable minimum wage to be paid workers in the country. A tripartite committee was subsequently set up.
Labour was forced to proceed on a total and indefinite strike, shutting down the national grid, when the government representatives in the committee pegged its recommendation for minimum wage at N60,000.
Following intervention by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, labour called off the strike and a new minimum wage of N62,000 was recommended, while labour cut its demand to N250,000 down from N494,000.
President Tinubu in his Democracy Day speech said the government negotiated with labour in good faith and with open arms, adding “in the face of labour’s call for a national strike, we did not seek to oppress or crack down on the workers as a dictatorial government would have done.
“We chose the path of cooperation over conflict. No one was arrested or threatened. Instead, the labour leadership was invited to break bread and negotiate toward a good-faith resolution”.
Speaking further, Tinubu alleged that there are those taking advantage of the current challenges of the country to undermine the nation’s democracy, while stressing that “where other forms of government impose against the will of the people, democracy aims to make leaders sufficiently humble”.
He said: “What democracy demands is that we do not resolve differences through force and repression. But we make allowance for the legitimacy of views that differ from our own.
“Where other forms of government impose against the will of the people, democracy aims to make leaders sufficiently humble that they conduct themselves as servants of the common good, not as viceroys of the narrow interests of the mighty.
“My dear compatriots, Nigeria faced a decision of untold gravity twenty-five years ago: Whether to veer toward a better destination or continue aimlessly in the fog of dictatorship.
“We made the right choice then. We must continue with that choice now.
“As Nigerians, we must remind ourselves that no matter how complicated democracy may be, it is the best form of governance in the long run. We must also be aware that there are those among us who will try to exploit current challenges to undermine, if not destroy, this democracy for which so much has already been given.
“These people do this not to make things better but to subject all other people and things to their control and dominance until the point that, if you are not counted among their elite, then your life will be small and no longer owned by you.
“This is the great battle of our day and the major reason we specially celebrate this Democracy day”.
June 12: Read the full text of President Tinubu’s 2024 Democracy Day speech here