President Muhammadu Buhari, Thursday, signed into law the Minimum Wage Repeal and Re-Enactment Act, 2019.
By this act, employers of labour are pay to their workers N30,000 the new minimum wage.
The President assented to the Act in Abuja, mandating all employers of labour across the country to pay workers a minimum of N30,000 monthly wage.
The National Assembly had submitted the minimum wage bill to the President on March 27.
The bill approving N30,000 as the new national minimum wage was passed by both chambers of National Asaembly before they went on break for the 2019 general elections.
Earlier in the week, workers in the Federal Capital Territory had begged the President to sign the minimum wage bill.
Some of the workers had expressed concerns over the delay in signing the bill into law, adding that it was causing them unnecessary anxiety.
The N30,000 new National Minimum Wage Bill was approved by the two chambers of the National Assembly.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly (Senate), Senator Ita Enang, confirmed this development when he briefed State House correspondents in Abuja on Thursday.
Enang stated that signing of the new minimum wage by the President had made it compulsory for employers of labour to pay N30,000 as the monthly minimum wage.
President Buhari had, in January, sought the approval of N27,000 as against the N30,000 agreed upon by stakeholders.
However, the Senate and the House of Representatives approved the sum of N30,000 as the new national minimum wage.
Recall that on September 30, 2018, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) suspended its general strike on its fourth day, after the government agreed to meet the unions on October 4-5 to discuss an increase in the minimum wage.
Initially, the organised labour had demanded for payment of ₦66,500.00 minimum wage, (about US$217 based on the Central Bank of Nigeria’s exchange rate of ₦306.35 to US$1US) to workers in the country.
However, the private employers and some state governors only offered so far a measly ₦25,000.
