Wale Edun, Minister of Finance, submitted the anticipated costs of implementing a new national minimum wage on Thursday, 6 June 2024, just 48 hours after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu issued the mandate. Edun, along with the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Atiku Bagudu, presented Tinubu with the cost implications of the new minimum wage at his office at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. Finance Minister, Edun told State House reporters after meeting with the President, “There is no cause for alarm.”

Recall that Tinubu directed Edun to evaluate the cost implications of the proposed minimum wage. Although the cost implications have not yet been made public, the analysis is claimed to have specified many potential new minimum wage levels, as well as the fiscal effects on the federal budget of each alternative. The development comes after Organized Labour shut down the economy on Monday, 3 June 2024 over the failure of the Nigerian Government to implement a new minimum wage and the reversal of April 2024 electricity tariff increase.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, 4 June 2024, the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) suspended the industrial action in exchange for an agreement from the Federal Government to begin negotiations to determine the new minimum wage.

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