While the Bola Tinubu-led government and the organised private sector (OPS) have agreed on N62,000 as the new national minimum wage, the organised labour has rejected the offer, insisting on N250,000.

As reported by Leadership newspaper, the disagreement is likely to force the umbrella bodies of the civil servants in the country – the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) – to reactivate their relaxed indefinite strike action earlier embarked upon by their members.

The five-day suspension of the industrial action ends today, Sunday, June 9.

It would be recalled that the 36 state governors, on the platform of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), said on Friday, June 7, that the N60,000/N62,000 minimum wage proposal was not sustainable and could not fly.

Reacting, the organised labour faulted the NGF’s position, saying every part of the new minimum wage agreement should be implemented and any of the state governors who cannot pay it should resign.

Speaking with The Punch in an interview published on Sunday, June 9, Tommy Etim, the deputy national president of the TUC, described the NGF's statement as a recipe for industrial unrest.

Etim said: “In this same country, the governors said that N30,000 was too much for governors to pay but it is in the same country that a governor emerged with over N80bn. What an irony!

"We cannot jump processes. We will also look at it together. Labour will be meeting. "We are giving Mr President the benefit of the doubt to walk the talk. The end will justify the means.”