The Federal Government may incur additional N315bn in wage bill in the next six months for the newly introduced allowance for federal workers, findings by The PUNCH have shown.
This came as Organised Labour agreed to suspend its proposed nationwide strike for 30 days, following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Government after a marathon meeting that ended around 11pm on Tuesday.
The resolution followed over five hours of deliberations between the Federal Government and Labour at the Chief of Staff Conference Room of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Announcing the outcome of the meeting to State House correspondents, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Simon Lalong, said “The NLC and TUC accept to suspend for 30 days the planned Indefinite Nationwide strike scheduled to begin, Tuesday, the 3rd of October, 2023.”
Lalong said the memorandum shall be filed with the relevant court of competent jurisdiction within one week as consent judgment by the Federal Government.
However, the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, said the unions would revisit the agreement if the FG failed to fulfil their demands.
According to the agreement, the Federal Government grants a wage award of N35,000 only to all Federal Government workers “beginning from the month of September pending when a new national minimum wage is expected to have been signed into law.”
The agreement further read in part, “A minimum wage committee shall be inaugurated within one month from the date of this agreement.
“Federal Government accepts to vote N100 billion for the provision of high capacity CNG buses for mass transit in Nigeria. Provisions are also being made for initial 55,000 CNG conversion kits to kick start an auto gas conversion programme, whilst work is ongoing on state-of-the-art CNG stations nationwide. The rollout aims to commence by November with pilots across 10 campuses nationwide.
“The Federal Government should urge state government through the National Economic Council and Governors Forum to implement wage award for their workers. Similar consideration should also be given to local government and private sector workers. A joint visitation will be made to the refineries to ascertain their rehabilitation status.”
Meanwhile, the Federal Government had on Sunday said that the provisional wage increase announced by President Bola Tinubu for all low-income workers for six months would cut across all treasury-paid workers.
The Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, revealed this to State House correspondents at the end of a four-hour marathon emergency meeting with the leaders of Organised Labour.
The compromise was reached to avert the proposed indefinite nationwide strike declared by the organised labour.
The meeting came hours after the President in his Independence Day broadcast announced the approval of a N25,000 provisional wage increase for a certain category of federal workers for the next six months.
However, The PUNCH gathered that labour leaders rejected Tinubu’s N25,000 provisional wage increment for low-grade workers.
As a result, the Federal Government raised the wage award to N35,000.
“The Federal Government has announced N35,000 only as provisional wage award for all treasury-paid Federal Government workers for six months following further consultation with President Bola Tinubu,” according to a statement by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mallam Mohammed Idris.
Earlier in August this year, the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze, said the Federal Government’s personnel cost was over N5tn, with 1.5 million workers under the Federal Government’s payroll.
He disclosed this to an Ad-Hoc committee of the House of Representatives, seeking to investigate the mismanagement of personnel recruitment, employment racketeering and gross mismanagement of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System.
Akabueze said, “Not only have we not redrawn, we have significantly reduced our numbers and managed the cost of the government, which as of 2015, was about N1tn. Today, it is over N5tn and as much as we desire to depopulate the growing number of unemployed people in the country, the reality is that the government is not really a direct job creator.
“The role of government is to create an enabling environment for the private sector to create jobs. The total number of people in the employment of the federal government nationwide, including all of the security services, the military and all of that, is under 1.5 million people.”
This likely means that 1.5 million federal workers will benefit from the proposed N35,000 monthly palliative proposed by the Federal Government to cushion the effects of the removal of subsidy on the Premium Motor Spirit, popularly known as petrol, for a period of six months.
The Federal Government is expected to spend N52.5bn monthly on 1.5 million federal workers.
This means that a total of N315bn will be spent in six months, with each civil servant getting a total of N210,000.
The President General of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, Adewale Adeyanju on Monday, directed that all members of the union to resume work on Tuesday (today) instructed by the Nigeria Labour Congress.
Working-class Nigerians
However, The PUNCH observed that many people of working-class age will not benefit from this Federal Government’s new allowance (N35,000)
Earlier, The PUNCH reported that about 88.2 per cent of working-age Nigerians have no salary-paying jobs.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that only about 11.8 per cent of working-age Nigerians were engaged in wage employment in the first quarter of 2023.
According to the asksource.info site, wage employment includes any salaried or paid job under contract (written or not) to another person, organisation, or enterprise in both the formal and informal economies.
The NBS also disclosed that there was a decrease of 1.6 percentage points in the percentage for wage employment from 13.4 per cent in Q4 2022 to 11.8 per cent in Q1 2023.
The Nigeria Labour Force Survey (4th Quarter 2022 and 1st Quarter 2023) report by the NBS read, “The share of wage employment was 13.4 per cent in Q4 2022 and 11.8 per cent in Q1 2023.”
It means that 1.6 per cent of working-age Nigerians either resigned or lost their salary-paying jobs between Q4 2022 and Q1 2023.
However, the NBS did not provide a value for the total number of working-age Nigerians, unlike in its previous report.
In 2020, the NBS placed Nigeria’s working-age population at 122 million.
Using the figure of 122 million, the N35,000 monthly will not cover up to one per cent of working-age Nigerians.
However, the Federal Government announced that it would commence payment of N75,000 to 15 million households at N25,000 per month for a three-month period from October to December 2023.
The PUNCH earlier reported that at least 42.69 million poor Nigerians were excluded from the N5,000 monthly cash transfer since its inception in 2016.
Also, the Senate earlier approved Tinubu’s request to borrow $800m loan from the World Bank. It also amended the 2022 Supplementary Appropriation Act to accommodate the provision for N500bn for palliatives to mitigate the effect of petrol subsidy removal on poor Nigerians.
According to Tinubu, the $800m loan will be used to cater for the welfare of the vulnerable and poor households in the country under the National Safety Net Programme, while the sum of N8,000 will be transferred monthly to the bank accounts of 12 million poor and low-income households for six months.
However, findings by The PUNCH showed that not less than 3.7 million poor households would be excluded from this new cash transfer programme.
Urban poor
The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, has stressed the need for the government’s palliatives to focus on those in the urban poor.
Oyedele did this on Monday at The Platform, a bi-annual good governance conference hosted by Poju Oyemade, the Senior Pastor of Covenant Christian Centre in Lagos.
He noted that the urban poor are the most affected by the government’s policy, which has made life almost impossible for them.
“Since fuel subsidy removal, it is a painful sacrifice that Nigerians are making… If you are an urban poor, life is almost impossible. When the subsidy was removed, the price of PMS at the pump went up by more than 200 per cent. You know what happened? Traffic in Lagos disappeared.
“One of the reasons it disappeared was because a lot of people could no longer maintain buying fuel to be on the road and then they park their cars. Do you think those are the upper-class people? No! The upper-class people will just complain briefly, they will pay and move on. They drove exactly the way they drove before, after the removal,” Oyedele said.
He further noted that the policy is necessary, but the government needs to commit every saved amount from this policy to helping those who really need it.
He also said that the most impacted by the subsidy removal policy are not in the villages.
“Many villages have no idea that they have removed fuel subsidy. But if you are an urban poor, you commute to work; you pay rent; you buy food. We produced our foods in the village. In other words, we must make sure that we are able to attend to these problems where it is most painful,” Oyedele said.
He further advised Nigerians to stop praying for the country’s refineries to work. Rather, they should channel such energy into demanding their sale.
The Nigeria Police Force said the Monitoring Unit of the Inspector-General of Police had commenced an investigation following a petition by a Delta State-based rights advocate, Israel Joe, over alleged extortion of N80 million from a surveillance contractor, Atubi Davison, by an Assistant Commissioner of Police, in charge of the State Criminal Investigation Department, and two other officers.
The police said it is currently interrogating the policemen who according to the petitioner, claimed that they would give the sum of N30 million to IG Egbetokun, and N16 million to the Rivers State CP, Polycarp Abonyi, out of the booty.
The petitioner also alleged that the policemen also collected a gold necklace from Davidson worth N4 million.
In an official correspondence yesterday, the Force Public Relations Officer, ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi noted that to ensure fairness and impartiality, the complainant who made the allegations will be contacted to come forward and cooperate by providing more relevant information regarding the matter.
Meanwhile, Joe, in the petition dated September 21, which was duly stamped by the office of the IG, said the police on September 14, 2023, busted Davison’s residence at Peace Avenue Road, Egbelu, in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state, searched the house and discovered local and foreign currencies totaling N100 million meant for payment for men securing pipeline facilities in Niger Delta.
The activist said the police took away the money, two cars, and gold necklace, and arrested four persons seen in Davison’s house, including a female. He said that despite an investigation showing that the money was for payment of securing an oil facility the money was not returned.
Joe said, “I met with the Assistant Commissioner, State CIID, and asked him what are you investigating the man for, the ACP told me that is an alleged kidnap case that he doesn’t know if somebody will come and report that his money is missing or is a ransom money, that all they need to do is to see how they can manage the situation that the money is about N100 million.
“A major part of the money is in dollars. I told the ACP they should charge him (Davison) to court if the man committed any offence. When they saw that calls were coming from different angles, they called us – called the father that they were going to release the two cars to him and any amount they release to him (Davison), he should manage it, that they are going to send N30 million to the IG, N16 million to the state Commissioner of Police.
“At the end of the day, they (the policemen) released the two cars, they released the Chevrolet and Toyota Camry car to him, released only N12 million to him and took away a whopping N80 million along with his gold chain valued about N4 million, the two plasma Television, shoes and clothes they carried from his house.”
Continuing, he said, “The IPO even told us to leave Port Harcourt that criminals may come for us, that we should leave Rivers State. I know one CP called him (AC) and he confirmed that they took away almost N100 million from the man’s house. They released only 12 million naira for the man.
“The 12 million was in dollars. The other people who were arrested with the man bailed themselves, some with one million naira, two million naira, just like that.
I am calling for a proper investigation. The money should be refunded and all officers involved should be brought to book. If the surveillance workers are not paid, people will go and break the pipeline and the man has nothing to do and it will tell on the economy of the Federal Government of Nigeria”.
Officer
Reacting to the development in an official correspondence on Monday night, Adejobi said, “Following allegations of unprofessionalism, kidnapping, name-dropping, extortion, and illicit enrichment against some officers of the Rivers State Police Command, and the swift intervention of the acting Inspector-General of Police, Olukayode Egbetokun, the officers fingered in a petition by one Israel Joe on behalf of one Mr Atubi Davison are being interrogated by the IGP Monitoring Unit as part of ongoing investigation to unravel the allegations and ascertain its veracity for further necessary action.
“As previously stated, the Nigeria Police Force views these allegations with the utmost seriousness and is fully committed to conducting a comprehensive and transparent investigation. To ensure fairness and impartiality, the complainant who made these allegations will be contacted to come forward and cooperate by providing more relevant information regarding the matter.
“The Inspector-General of Police, therefore, cautions the public about fraudulent individuals who always attempt to exploit the reputation of the Inspector General of Police and other senior officers for personal gain.
He urges members of the public to exercise caution and verify the authenticity of anyone claiming to represent Senior Police Officers in any dubious activities while reporting such to the NPF and the Force Public Relations Officer or the Complaint Response Unit desk in any state of the Federation.”
A pregnant woman and a soon-to-be by bride were among those who perished in the explosion that hit an illegal refining site in Rivers state.
Within Nigeria had reported that an inferno engulfed the oil bunkering site in Ibaa community, Emuoha Local Government Area of the oil rich southern State.
The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps confirmed the tragedy in a statement on Monday.
Among the dead victims, according to the NSCDC, are a graduate and a lady whose wedding is billed for next month.
According to the statement issued by the spokesperson of the NSCDC, Rivers State Command, Olufemi Ayodele, 18 persons died in the inferno.
Ayodele disclosed that 25 persons were rescued by operatives of NSCDC.
On the cause of the incident, he said preliminary investigations on the Sunday night inferno show that it was caused by a local refinery cooking pot constructed close to an oil reservoir that contained combustible materials.
He said the burning temperature eventually became too high and caused the fire.
The statement reads, “Thus, the fire disaster which occurred in Ibaa community is highly condemnable and uncalled for.
“There is a need for conscious effort and stronger collaborations with the traditional institutions, community youths, and religious leaders amongst others to fight against oil bunkering activities in our various communities and this begins with giving credible intelligence and information to the NSCDC, the lead agency in the fight against vandalism of oil pipelines and protection of critical national assets and infrastructures in Rivers State”.
“The state NSCDC Commandant, Basil Igwebueze, hinted that information gathered suffice that the fire incident started at a very late hour hence 18 victims were burnt beyond recognition while 25 injured persons were rescued.
“From our preliminary findings, it was gathered that the inferno was caused by a local refinery cooking pot constructed close to an oil reservoir which contained combustible materials, the burning temperature eventually became too high and the environment gutted fire.”
Continuing, he said, “We also gathered that the cooking pot belonged to one Mr. John Bodo who sustained severe fire injuries while his son, Uche Bodo, a fresh graduate, died on the spot.
“It is also lamentable to relay that most of the victims were youths; then a pregnant woman and a young lady getting ready for her marriage ceremony next month were all casualties.”
While condoling with the affected families; the NSCDC state helmsman warned against the activities of illegal local refineries in communities across the state.
Igwebueze further said such negative activities cause huge damage to the environment and ‘irreparable loss’.
“Therefore, critical stakeholders must align and vehemently fight against illegal oil bunkering activities in Rivers State,” he said
The N30 billion lawsuit filed by the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria against Meta Platforms Incorporated (the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) and its agent AT3 Resources Limited is scheduled for a hearing at the Federal High Court, Abuja Judicial Division in October.
ARCON’s Director-General, Olalekan Fadolapo, revealed this information during an interview with The PUNCH.
ARCON aims to secure a declaration, asserting that the ongoing publication and dissemination of advertisements targeting the Nigerian market via Facebook and Instagram by Meta Platforms Incorporated, without prior vetting and approval, are in violation of Nigerian advertising laws, illegal, and unlawful.
The regulatory body has emphasized that Meta Platforms Incorporated’s unvetted adverts have resulted in a loss of revenue for the Federal Government.
He said the decision to serve the company at its corporate headquarters became necessary after Meta claimed that it did not have any physical office in Nigeria.
He said, “The case is coming up this October, because the level of shenanigans that is happening in that place (Facebook) is too much. But trust me, we will use all legal means to sanitise that space.
“What we are saying is that what they are showing to the Nigerian audience, which is our territorial space is indecent. We will not go and regulate the media in the US, but what we will do is regulate the media space here in Nigeria.
“They said they don’t have an office in Nigeria, but they are doing business in Nigeria. So, we are not concerned about their office, we are concerned about the business they are doing in Nigeria. If you are doing business in Nigeria, you are supposed to abide by Nigerian laws.”
Several policemen in Anambra State are facing disciplinary action after a disturbing video emerged showing them brutally beating two sisters over alleged failure to pay security levies.
In the viral video, about five policemen and a civilian accomplice are seen punching and hitting the two young women outside their apartment despite protests from shocked onlookers.
According to reports, one of the victims had just undergone an appendectomy surgery a week earlier, making the assault even more egregious.
The Anambra State Police Command has expressed regret over the incident. Spokesperson DSP Tochukwu Ikenga confirmed the officers had been identified and arrested.
“They are currently facing disciplinary actions for acting unprofessionally and inability to control the situation,” he noted.
Ikenga explained that the man in civilian clothes seen repeatedly punching one victim in her stomach and face is not a policeman but the original complainant in the case.
He revealed the suspect’s relatives called in the complainant when police arrived to make an arrest, sparking the violent confrontation caught on video.
While conceding the officers erred, Ikenga stressed that the initial altercation was between the complainants and the suspects’ family members.
“The police officers failed to manage the situation professionally even as they struggled to control the fighting parties,” he added.
The video, shared widely on social media, shows the policemen intermittently hitting one of the victims on her back and face as she tries to shield herself.
Onlookers can be heard protesting that the girl just had surgery and questioning what offense warranted such brutal treatment.
The incident has sparked public outrage across the state, with many demanding disciplinary action against the officers involved for excessive use of force.
The police command says it does not condone such conduct and the affected officers will face sanctions to serve as a deterrent.
The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Fetus Keyamo, has weighed in on the release of President Bola Tinubu’s academic results by the Chicago State University, CSU.
Keyamo said the 2023 Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, embarked on self-humiliation odyssey.
In a post on X, the minister asked Atiku to tender unreserved apology to Tinubu and Nigerians.
According to Keyamo: “From the responses by Chicago State University, ATIKU’s journey to Chicago and back has been a journey to nowhere, a fruitless exercise and an odyssey in self-humiliation. President Tinubu and Nigerians deserve an unreserved apology from him.”
In the result released, CSU confirmed it found three diplomas matching the certificate Tinubu presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, after a diligent search.
Atiku obtained victory at the court in his fierce legal battle to probe into the academic qualification of Tinubu in the February 25 presidential poll.
Tinubu had supplied certificates from the Chicago State University, CSU, to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to secure eligibility to participate in the election.
A United States of America court on Saturday ordered CSU to release Tinubu’s academic records for verification and in support of Atiku’s petition challenging the result of the 2023 presidential poll.
Justice Nancy Maldonado in a judgment dismissed the objection raised by Tinubu against Atiku’s request and expressly ordered that the CSU must submit the academic records to Atiku.
CHAIRMAN of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Mr. Taiwo Oyedele, and the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Mr. Bosun Tijani, yesterday, declared that strong institutions and investments in manpower are key to building a great country, adding that the country’s youth are its biggest asset.
Oyedele and Tijani spoke during The Covenant Nation’s non-political and non-partisan national development fair, known as The Platform.
Oyedele, in his address, cautioned those leaving Nigeria not to wish others staying back evil.
He argued that strong institutions and investments in manpower are key to building a great country, adding that governments must, at all levels, pay attention to these areas.
Oyedele urged them to create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive, saying that way, people would not be eager to leave the country.
His words: “There is nothing wrong in leaving, don’t get me wrong. But if you leave, don’t wish the rest of us bad.
“And while you are here and continue to be here, don’t wish us evil. If you have citizens, who are actively working against their country, there is no amount of prayers you will pray, that country will not succeed.”
“Even if you are planning to leave, just remember, there are 95 per cent of us who cannot go anywhere.”
While noting the importance of patriotism, he said no foreigner can develop Nigeria.
“All the countries that were developed were developed by their people,” he added.
Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa has reassured the people of the state to maintain calmness, peace, and adherence to the law following the tribunal’s decision that nullified his election.
He emphasised that he remains their governor until a different verdict is reached by the Supreme Court.
Speaking to a large supporter of the APC at the Government House, Governor Sule described the judgment as a temporal setback and a wake-up call.He explained that he is going to carry on his duties as the governor just the way he has been doing while his lawyers will appeal the judgment.
He called on his supporters to remain calm and go about their normal activities as he was not rattled by the judgment.
In a significant development in the fight against malaria, the World Health Organization (WHO) has officially recommended a new vaccine, R21/Matrix-M, for the prevention of malaria in children.
This groundbreaking recommendation comes following expert advice from the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and the Malaria Policy Advisory Group (MPAG), and has received the endorsement of the WHO Director-General following its regular biannual meeting held on 25-29 September.
The announcement, made in a press statement on Monday, marks a crucial milestone in global health.
Nigeria had approved the R21 malaria vaccine back in April, b coming the second country after Ghana to do so.
This vaccine, developed by the University of Oxford and produced on a large scale by the Serum Institute of India, represents only the second-ever vaccine created for a disease that has inflicted suffering for over a thousand years.
The R21 vaccine is now the second malaria vaccine to earn WHO’s recommendation, following the RTS,S/AS01 vaccine, which received a similar endorsement back in 2021.
Both vaccines have demonstrated their safety and efficacy in preventing malaria in children, offering a beacon of hope in the battle against this deadly mosquito-borne disease.
The WHO noted that malaria has long cast a shadow over the African Region, where nearly half a million children succumb to the disease annually, adding that the introduction of these vaccines promises to be a game-changer in curbing its devastating impact.
As the demand for malaria vaccines continues to surge, there have been constraints in the supply of the RTS,S vaccine.
However, with the inclusion of R21 on the list of WHO-recommended malaria vaccines, it is expected that there will be an adequate supply to protect all children residing in malaria-endemic areas.
In addition to this landmark decision, SAGE has also issued recommendations for new vaccines targeting diseases such as dengue and meningitis.
Furthermore, WHO has provided guidelines for immunisation schedules and product recommendations for COVID-19.
Additionally, key programmatic recommendations for polio and the Immunization Agenda 2030 have been addressed, highlighting the organisation’s commitment to public health.
The WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, expressed his optimism about the development: “As a malaria researcher, I used to dream of the day we would have a safe and effective vaccine against malaria. Now we have two. Demand for the RTS,S vaccine far exceeds supply, so this second vaccine is a vital additional tool to protect more children faster, and to bring us closer to our vision of a malaria-free future.”
Also, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, emphasised the profound significance of this recommendation for the continent, stating: “This second vaccine holds real potential to close the huge demand-and-supply gap. Delivered to scale and rolled out widely, the two vaccines can help bolster malaria prevention and control efforts and save hundreds of thousands of young lives in Africa from this deadly disease.”
To address this demand, WHO allocated a total of 18 million doses of RTS, S/AS01 to 12 African countries from 2023 to 2025.
These allocations were made to Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Uganda, emphasising the urgency and importance of malaria prevention in the region.
Lawyers for Niger’s ousted president say they are filing a legal case in the West African country against those behind the coup that deposed the democratically elected leader.
The lawyers for Mohamed Bazoum, who was overthrown on July 26 and has since been detained, also said in a statement they were appealing to the UN Human Rights Council.
The complaint, seen by AFP on Monday, is aimed at new strongman General Abdourahamane Tiani and “all others.”
It constitutes a civil action and alleges “attack and conspiracy against state authority, crimes and offenses committed by civil servants and arbitrary arrests and confinements.”
It is expected to be lodged in the next few days with a court in the capital Niamey, one of the lawyers, Dominique Inchauspe, told AFP.
The lawyers also said they were appealing to two bodies of the UN Human Rights Council including its working group on arbitrary detention.
Inchauspe said the coup was “an infringement on the dignity of the Nigerien state” and reaffirmed the “absolute necessity” to restore the rule of law.
Bazoum filed a lawsuit with a court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on September 18, his Senegalese lawyer Seydou Diagne has said.
He has been held in his residence since the coup.
On August 13, the coup leaders said they would pursue Bazoum for “high treason.”
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Organised Labour last night suspended its planned nationwide strike for one month following an agreement with the Federal Government. Though details of the Memorandum of Understanding suspending the strike, were sketchy at the time of this report, the agreement, Vanguard gathered, was reached very late at night.
The meeting was reconvened yesterday for both government and labour to find common ground and avert the planned strike by organized labour to force the government to address the suffering and pains of Nigerians, occasioned by the petrol subsidy removal.
Earlier yesterday, the National Executive Council, NEC, of NLC and its TUC’s counterpart, had met separately to review Sunday’s meeting with the Federal Government’s offers.
Vanguard gathered that at the end of the separate NEC meeting, leaders of NLC and TUC set up a committee to harmonise their resolutions to arrive at common ground.
According to the sources, the joint resolution of NLC and TUC was presented to the government team around 5 pm.
But the meeting did not reconvene until 8.15 pm when the government team returned to the chagrin of labour leaders who Vanguard gathered, almost left the venue in anger. Recall that President Bola Tinubu had on Sunday evening succumbed to the N35,000, provisional wage award demanded by labour after his initial N25,000 for the average low-grade worker to run for six months was rejected.
Instead, labour insisted that the wage award should be across the board and run till a new minimum wage expected to be negotiated next year is put in place.
A statement issued by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris explained that some of the resolutions reached at the Sunday meeting were that, “the issues in dispute can only be resolved when workers are at work and not when they are on strike.
“Labour unions argued for higher wage awards and the Federal Government Team promised to present Labour’s request to President Bola Tinubu for further consideration.
“A sub-committee to be constituted to work out the details of the implementation of all items for consideration regarding government interventions to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal.
“The lingering matter of Road Transport Employees Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) and National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in Lagos State needs to be addressed urgently and Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who participated virtually, pledged to resolve the matter.
“NLC and TUC will consider the offers by the Federal Government with a view to suspending the planned strike to allow for further consultations on the implementation of the resolutions above”, the statement said.
Members of the organized labour team present are, the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, his TUC counterpart, Festus Osifo, the NLC General Secretary, Emma Ugbaja, the TUC Secretary General, Nuhu Toro among others.
On the government team are the National Security Adviser, NSA, Nuhu Ribadu, the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, and the Minister of State for Labour, Nkeiruka Onyejecha.
[STATE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE] President Tinubu Mourns Prominent Educationist, Emeritus Professor Umaru Shehu
AdminPresident Bola Tinubu has expressed shock and deep sadness over the passing into glory of a foremost Nigerian educationist and one of the pioneer medical doctors from Northern Nigeria, Emeritus Professor Umaru Shehu, CFR, on Monday.
Born in 1930 in Maiduguri, Borno State, the Nonagenarian was 92 when he passed away.
President Tinubu described Emeritus Professor Shehu's death as a big blow to the country, saying that his death had closed a glorious chapter of illustrious service to Nigeria, Nigerians, and humanity as a whole.
"Emeritus Professor Shehu was a giant, even among that legendary generation of pioneering indigenous professionals in our country, and the story of his life is saturated with many first, golden steps across the realms of medical practice, school administration, and humanitarian services.
"The renowned Professor of Medicine has always served Nigeria meritoriously and bestowed on all Nigerians a sense of pride with his indelible breakthroughs and innovative approaches to the administration of health and medical education around the world. Nigeria was indeed blessed to have him as both a patriotic son and as a worthy global representative in his fields of endeavour," the President gratefully stated.
Trained at the defunct University College-Ibadan, the University of Liverpool and the University of London, among others, Emeritus Professor Shehu spent a lifetime straddling Nigeria's medical and higher education institutions, in addition to several remarkable engagements on the global stage.
The legendary academician served variously as a Deputy Vice Chancellor, Vice Chancellor and Sole Administrator of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; University of Nigeria, Nsukka; and the University of Maiduguri, respectively. He successfully taught and mentored generations of medical practitioners, both in Nigeria and in the United Kingdom, and served at different times as the Country Coordinator of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Nigeria and Ethiopia.
President Tinubu shared his profound condolences with the people and Government of Borno State, the deceased statesman's family, the Nigerian medical community, and so many others who are grieving around the world over the colossal loss of this Nigerian icon, mentor, father, son, and dedicated professional.
The President also prayed for the repose of the soul of the deceased academician and statesman.
Chief Ajuri Ngelale
Special Adviser to the President
(Media and Publicity)
The Governorship election petition tribunal has nullified the election of Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa state, declaring PDP’s David Ombugadu as the winner.
Delivering the judgment virtually, the chairman of the tribunal, Justice Ezekiel Ajayi declared Emmanuel Ombugadu of the PDP as the lawfully elected governor of Nasarawa State.
The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in the 2023 general elections, Peter Obi, has lamented the ‘dollarisation’ of the Nigerian economy.
Speaking during an interview with Arise TV on Monday on the state of the country, Peter Obi stated that the Naira should have been devalued.
He added that the use of the dollar in the country has led to unproductivity.
Obi said: “Dollar has become the underground currency of our economy; it shouldn’t be. We have a currency called the naira.
“All the things people use dollars to do that are not productive should be removed.
“I can assure you that when you remove it, it can strengthen the currency. Today, even when you want to do party primaries, people share dollars. That is not our currency.
“There should be a stiff penalty in dealing with the issue. If people earn dollars legitimately, let them spend it the way they want.
“However, it has now become a means of corruption and criminality in our system.”
Peter Obi further stated that the country should work more on exports to strengthen the currency.