The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has warned that inflation has effectively wiped out the purchasing power of Nigeria’s seventy thousand naira minimum wage.
NLC President, Joe Ajaero, said the present minimum wage has been overtaken by the astronomical rise in the cost of food, transportation, housing, education and other essential goods and services, leaving workers with substantially reduced real incomes despite the nominal wage increase.
Ajaero demanded an immediate account of the savings from the removal of the petrol subsidy, questioning where the resources have gone three years after Nigerians were told they would be redirected to infrastructure and social services.
In an Independence Day statement, the NLC President said soaring inflation left workers increasingly unable to meet basic household expenses and demanded that negotiations for a new national wage benchmark for 2027 begin immediately.
He described the erosion of workers’ purchasing power as a survival crisis and demanded an immediate nationwide wage award for workers at the federal, state and local government levels as an emergency measure to cushion the impact of inflation.
The NLC also demanded urgent measures to reduce petrol and transportation costs, arguing that rising transport fares have become a major channel through which higher energy costs feed into food prices, school fees, rents and other household expenses.
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