National Minimum Wage And Workers’ Welfare

Discussions have begun afresh over a new national minimum wage across the strata of work­ers in Nigeria. Already, the fed­eral government, having acknowledged the necessity for a cushioning measure for Nigerians against the background of harsh economic pressures, has recent­ly offered to pay its workers a N70,000 transportation relief package over the next six months.

But this whole business of seem­ingly going round in circles over min­imum wage is sure to cause mixed feel­ings among many people given that it was only back in 2024 that the current N70,000 was agreed upon between the federal government and the central la­bour unions after long drawn negotia­tions.

Certainly, no one can deny the im­mense pressure under which the average Nigerian worker may have been keeping things together either as an individual or a member of a family, community or even the larger society; both before and since the new minimum wage came into effect.

However, considering the energy, re­sources and indeed the emotional dis­turbance the entire nation usually ex­perience towards arriving at mutually agreeable national minimum wage over the recent past, especially against what almost always appears to be marginal gains, do we deserve to go through this pain again so soon?

Official negotiations for the N18,000 minimum wage started precisely on July 14, 2009, when President Umaru Musa-Yar’Adua inaugurated the Jus­tice Alfa ModdiboBelgore Committee on national minimum wage. That event in itself was riding on the back of an earlier demand, in December 2008, by the Nigeria Labour Congress of a mini­mum wage of N52,200 which eventually sparked national protests.

It was not until February 22, 2011 that the National Assembly passed the N18,000 minimum wage bill into law following which the former President Goodluck Jonathan then signed the of­ficial act approving it.

By the way, as of December 2008, when the NLC demanded N52,200 as minimum wage, the average rate of dollar to naira was N134.29. By February, 2011, naira/ dollar exchange had become N152.89 ( i.e. N18,000 = $117.73 ) which means that in the two years in between, the same N18,000 might have been equivalent of $134.04 if it had been acceded to as of December 2008 when the NLC made the demand.

Even the next upward review of the national minimum wage to N30,000 in 2019 by the MuhammaduBuhari admin­istration was only the equivalent of $83 ( a devaluation in real terms ) as of that time.

What all this shows is that the incre­mental gains of labour wages in Nigeria over the past few years may have been nothing but superficial reference badg­es for both the labour unions and politi­cians with little or nothing in substance or significant impact on the workers for whom they were intended.

Little wonder then that all through those intervening years, the groans and lamentations of the masses were hardly ever abated. With inflation running far ahead of average family finances, neck and neck with all too regular misguid­ed economic policies and programmes, it must have taken only the supersonic Nigerian spirit for the average Nigerian worker to keep showing up at all.

Historically, minimum wages were primarily intended to set a living wage floor for low income earners and to raise general standard of living. In Europe where it all started, negotiations were neither treated with levity nor were wage resolutions merely for optics.

Even back home in Nigeria, when Chief Obafemi Awolowo, as the Premier of the Western Region, launched the first region-wide (and indeed the closest to national) minimum wage in 1954, it can safely be presumed that it must have been absolutely in the welfarist spirit of the Action Group government which he represented.

And beyond then, up until the nation­al minimum wage ratified by the Alhaji Shehu Shagari government in 1981, wage floors were in real terms living wages that took due cognisance of market reali­ties as per the prevailing prices and costs of the basic necessities for decent living.

At least, the N125 monthly minimum wage of President Shehu Shagari’s time comfortably exchanged for $205 and at a time when a litre of petrol was 15.3 kobo, a 50kg bag of cement was N6, that of rice was below N35, and annual rent for a two bedroom flat in Ilupeju, Lagos, averaged N250.

In fact, in contemporary times, ad­vanced economic thinking has identi­fied minimum wages as valuable tools in positively manipulating macroeconom­ic and socio-political variables to create stability or stimulate development.

So, ordinarily, both the labour unions and any government in power ought to find a common purpose in the welfare of workers, and by extension other lower class Nigerians. Their main ob­ject should not necessarily be about the nominal value of the minimum wage as it must be about the experienced mini­mum comfort by the workers.

A situation where minimum wage discussions run like ceremonial ping-pong events between labour unions and government, which is done more out of habit rather than lasting impact, cannot be in the ultimate interests of Nigerian workers.

In the genuine interest of workers, Ni­gerians would expect both the unions and the government to approach issues this time with greater dedication to the core welfarist purpose of a minimum wage, being both open minded, realistic and totally compassionate in their final resolutions beyond the figures.

For starters, there is little benefit in a marginally increased national mini­mum wage that would take two years to negotiate with a federal government, and upon agreement an additional two years of catfights with state governors and private sector stakeholders before full implementation.

While the idea of a single nation­al minimum wage is good and noble, pragmatic considerations may warrant that we rather have a band of minimum wages in which case, states in the coun­try are classified into economic zones (on the basis of both their comparable costs of living and economic viability) enabling faster negotiations and more realistic and implementable wage agree­ments across the board.

Beyond that, new, non-monetised ways and means must be developed and instituted as collaborative projects be­tween Labour unions on the one hand, and states and federal governments on the other (beyond any particular admin­istration) to not just augment the nom­inal value of end wages of workers, but essentially to set a minimum standard of decent living for all Nigerians.

If the labour unions are not seen to be justifiably representing the interest of the Nigerian worker, how then can they be expected to rise to that higher purpose of being avatars of freedom and emancipation for the oppressed and un­der-represented citizens of Nigeria who constantly look up to them for a share of political voice, attention and mobil­isation.

For neither the NLC nor the TUC need to be reminded that beyond representing workers within the fold of their unions, who are only a tiny fraction of the na­tional workforce, they still share a des­tiny with millions of other Nigerians in informal employment, small to medium companies with poor compensation and welfare schemes, including able-bodied ones who simply cannot find viable em­ployment.

And as for persons in authority at both the state and federal levels, they must come to terms with the inevitabil­ity of confronting the economic reality of workers and that of the average citi­zen under their watch. Hopefully, a new order would emerge where governments rather than see labour unions as adver­saries, and their leaders as troublemak­ers, would embrace them as invaluable development partners working towards the same end.

It might indeed be to the longer term political benefits of political office hold­ers to become even more anticipatory, leading with programmes and policies that would better the lot of the workers without prompting. If nothing at all, the 1954 Awolowo minimum wage policy re­mains a clear example of how any gov­ernment can seize the moment through a genuinely welfarist initiative.

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