The Federal Government is right to reopen the minimum-wage question, because no wage can be called fair if it is continually outrun by inflation and the rising cost of survival. The N70,000 minimum wage was agreed in 2024 at the outset of President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms. Nigerians were asked to absorb painful shocks in the hope of a more stable future.
Two years on, that hope has been strained by the harsh realities of a reform programme that has yet to translate into broad relief for households. With food, transport, rent, medicine and school costs climbing relentlessly, the fixed-wage class and ordinary Nigerians have been left to carry the burden of adjustment almost alone.
The hardship imposed on ordinary Nigerians has been severe and visible. Fuel-subsidy removal pushed transport costs sharply upward, while exchange-rate volatility fed into the prices of food, drugs and imported essentials. Public servants, teachers, junior workers and private-sector employees on fixed salaries have watched their incomes lose value long before payday even arrives.
In many homes, families have had to reduce meals, withdraw children from better schools, postpone medical care and abandon modest savings simply to survive. That is the true context in which a minimum-wage review becomes not merely desirable but unavoidable.
