President Bola Tinubu has approved N35,000 provisional wage award for all treasury-paid federal government workers for six months, following further consultations with the Federal Government delegation that met with the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) on Sunday.

Briefing State House Correspondents after the meeting with Organised Labour, at the presidential villa, Abuja  on Sunday night, Chief of Staff to the President, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila said the meeting with the Labour union was successful, with ultimate hope that the planned Nationwide strike will be averted. 

“There was a lot of chatter on Twitter about the issue of low-income workers only falling into the category of the provisional wage increase. And we did communicate with the President and he quickly did say and agreed that all categories of workers will be given the wage bill. There is nothing like low income, median income or high income,” Gbajabiamila said. ⁣

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The Chief of Staff explained, “Hopefully, we expect that Labour will call a meeting of their various branches and executive tomorrow to do present the agreements that have been reached, and we pray and we believe and we hope that the strike will be called off on Tuesday.”

The Federal Government announced that it will commence payment of N75,000 to 15 million households at N25,000 per month, for a three-month period  from October-December 2023, all in order to cushion the effect of the removal of Petrol subsidy. 

Furthermore, the Federal Government also committed to the provision of funds for micro and small-scale enterprises as well as waivers on VAT on diesel for the next 6 months.

NLC President, Joe Ajaero and TUC, Deputy President, Tommy Etim Okon speaking respectively said they will go back and discuss with their National Executive Committee to review the offers by the Federal Government with a view to suspending the planned strike.

“I don’t have much to say than what the Chief of Staff has said. We’ve been meeting and we’ve looked at almost all the issues, all the promissory notes from the government and we’ll look at how to translate them to reality and to be workable.

“Then, we’re going to take those promises to our organs. Of course, you know these people here cannot just wake up and review and call off action.

“So, like he (Gbajabiamila) said, we are hopeful that our organs will have a look at them and give us a fresh mandate on what next to do. So, it’s a simple one,” Ajaero said.