It was a red letter day for workers in Nigeria. Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari yesterday gave assent to a bill for increasing the country’s minimum wage to 30,000 naira ($98) from 18,000 naira. Workers have been long demanding a wage increase, which the federal government has been stalling for one reason or the other. Importantly, this is also an electoral promise of the current government, when the President sought another term. The unions, last year, went on a strike demanding an increase of minimum wage of 50,000 naira a month. It is still not known what the reactions of the labor unions are. Africa’s most populous and arguably the most asset-rich Nation has a record of keeping wage levels depressed. Presently, the average earning of a labor per day is US$ 2, which is quite low against escalating inflation, which stood at 11.25 % in March. The new rates will come into effect immediately. The argument of the Federal government to keep the salaries depressed was that most of the 36 states in the country were struggling to pay salaries to the employees. The states in the country receive monthly allocations from the Federal government towards payment of salaries. Despite that, many states have not paid salaries for months together. The last increase was in 2011 when the minimum salary was raised to 18,000Naira per month from 7500 Naira.
