The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, SAN, has said the N70,000 national minimum wage is no longer sufficient to cushion Nigerian workers against the country’s rising cost of living.
Keyamo made the remarks at the 2026 National Pre-Retirement Summit organised by XEM Consultants Limited, where he said persistent economic pressures had significantly reduced workers’ purchasing power.
The minister called on the Federal Government to reach a compromise with organised labour in ongoing wage discussions, noting that labour unions were seeking an increase of up to N500,000.
Keyamo, who previously served as Minister of State for Labour and Employment, recalled the negotiations that resulted in the increase of the minimum wage from N30,000 to N70,000 in 2024.
According to him, the current wage has not kept pace with the economic challenges confronting workers.
He also expressed concern over the treatment of workers in some government institutions, particularly instances where employees struggle to access basic allowances while senior officials allegedly receive substantial funding for overseas trips.
“I will have none of it. Without these workers, we will not have a country,” Keyamo said.
He maintained that workers remained critical to national productivity and the effective functioning of government, stressing that human resources were more important than equipment or technology.
“It’s not the machines or everything that you have,it’s the human factor. Without that, no machine will move,” he said.
Keyamo consequently urged ministers and heads of government agencies to place workers’ welfare at the centre of their decisions and ensure that bureaucratic processes did not undermine employees’ productivity.
The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Joe Ajaero, also urged the Federal Government to deploy increased oil revenues to ease the economic burden on workers and other Nigerians.
Ajaero argued that the rise in international crude oil prices had increased earnings for oil producing countries and said part of the additional revenue should be channelled into measures that would reduce the impact of higher transportation and food costs on citizens.
“As one of the oil producing countries, they are making trillions because of the problem in the Strait of Hormuz. You can see that oil was pegged at maybe $70 or whatever dollars. It’s $100, so they are making an extra $30 or $40,” he said.
“Now, can’t you use this money to embark on some interventionary measures like other countries where this is affected, so that we’ll now be alive till the time when they will say minimum wage?”
The NLC president said wage negotiations should not be based solely on the amount written on workers’ pay slips but should also reflect the actual purchasing power of their earnings.
“Negotiations are not just figures,” Ajaero said.
He explained that even a substantial nominal wage could become inadequate when the prices of essential commodities rise significantly.
“Assuming one naira is equal to $1, I would advise Nigerian workers to remain at ₦70,000 because that would be big money for them, but you can see that you can equally get one million naira and a bag of rice is ₦500,000, so what of that? What happens?”
Ajaero further called for wages and pensions to be linked to inflation or the cost-of-living index so that workers’ incomes could automatically reflect significant changes in economic conditions.
“Unless you index it either based on cost of living index or inflation, immediately inflation goes like this, automatically it will adjust to this, as it is affecting pension, so it affects salaries; and those are some of the things that will enable us to agree on something,” he said.
He also argued that the minimum pension should form part of negotiations on the minimum wage, noting that pensioners were similarly affected by rising living costs.
According to Ajaero, the decision to shorten the minimum-wage review period from five years to three was intended to enable wages to respond more quickly to economic changes.
He said preparations for the next review, expected around March or April, should begin early.
“This minimum wage is supposed to expire March–April, so the conversation ought to start early. That’s a three-year cycle,” Ajaero said.
However, he stressed that labour’s immediate priority was finding ways to help workers survive the current economic hardship before the next wage review.
“But now we are more concerned on ‘give us this day’ — how to survive today before that time. Because these policies of the fuel going up, jumping up, and the Nigerian government is making a whole lot of money from it.”
Ajaero also questioned the impact of government initiatives aimed at reducing transportation and energy costs, particularly the Compressed Natural Gas programme.
He asked whether enough CNG facilities and converted vehicles were available to make the initiative effective for ordinary workers.
