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Workers shut down the national electricity grid and drove away operators at a key transmission station. Workers were blocked while going to their respective stations, particularly those who were working at power stations
Nigeria’s largest labor unions began striking work to demand a salary increase amid the decades’ worst cost of living crisis. The strike has paralyzed the West African country. Surging inflation is the trigger for the strikes. Labor unions are demanding more salaries and importantly a revision of the Minimum Salary as the inflation soared, thanks mainly to the withdrawal of subsidies.
Workers shut down the national electricity grid and drove away operators at a key transmission station. Workers were blocked while going to their respective stations, particularly those who were working with power stations.
The government workers either failed to show up or shut down entrances to offices, including at airports in the capital of Abuja and the economic hub of Lagos. The unions want the current minimum monthly wage of 30,000 naira (USD 20) to be increased to nearly 500,000 naira (USD 336). The government offers 60,000 naira (USD 40).
The unions’ demand would increase the government wage bill by 9.5 trillion (USD 6.3 billion), which is capable of “destabilizing the economy,” information minister Mohammed Idris has said. After Nigeria’s president ended the decadeslong but costly fuel subsidies on his first day in office in May last year, the price of gas more than doubled in one of Africa’s biggest oil producers. Prices for public transport and commodities soared.
Read Also:
https://trendsnafrica.com/nigeria-nationwide-power-outage-as-labour-unions-shut-down-national-grid/
https://trendsnafrica.com/labor-unions-in-nigeria-resort-to-protests-over-recent-fuel-price-hike/
Tinubu’s government also devalued the naira currency to encourage foreign investment, which further increased the prices of basic commodities in the import-dependent country of more than 210 million people.
