BREAKING: FG, Labour meet in Abuja over minimum wage

The Federal Government is currently meeting with the leadership of the organised labour at the ministry of labour and employment in Abuja over the controversial minimum wage.

Punch reports that the FG and the organised labour are meeting with a view to find a lasting solution to the controversy surrounding the new minimum wage of N30,000.

It was also gathered that the meeting was called to give update on the FG’s effort on the transmission of an executive bill on the new minimum wage to the National Assembly as demanded by the NLC.

The meeting will also address ways to avert the impending nationwide protest by the unions.

Leaders present at the meeting include the minister of labour and employment, Chris Ngige, minister of finance, Zainab Ahmed and the minister of national planning, Udoma Udo Udoma.

Those representing the organised labour are president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Ayuba Wabba, the general secretary of the NLC, Peter Ozo-Eson, and president of the Trade Union Congress, Kaigama Bobboi.

Meanwhile, Track News previously reported that Peter Obi, former Anambra state governor and vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has joined the debate on national minimum wage and submitted the need for states to determine what they pay their workers based on their realities.

Obi said minimum wage doesn’t have to be universal.

“I don’t believe that somebody in Lagos should earn the same thing as somebody who is in, maybe, Anambra state or somebody in Maiduguri,” the former governor said.

He, however, stressed that it was important to have a federal minimum wage which is the product of proper talks with labour.