Nigerian President, Bola Tinubu, has ordered the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, to prepare and submit the cost implications for a new minimum wage being demanded by organized labour, as well present an affordable, sustainable and realistic figure on Wednesday.

Tinubu gave marching orders to the Minister on Tuesday when he summoned the government’s representatives in a tripartite committee on new minimum wage to a meeting in his office.

The wage increase has been a bone of contention between labour and government which has led to several strike actions that has crippled Nigeria’s economy, with the latest which commenced on Monday shutting down key government infrastructures.

In several meetings between labour leaders and the tripartite committee, the Federal Government had proposed N48,000, N57,000 and N60,000, which labour rejected and embarked on an indefinite nationwide strike on Monday but suspended it yesterday to give room for further negotiations.

While giving the order, Tinubu said the government’s new offer must be ready today as the basis of negotiation with organised labour, and also directed those involved in the negotiation to expedite action, so that everything on the new minimum wage could be concluded as soon as possible.

Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, who briefed journalists after the meeting, said President Tinubu had to summon the meeting to look at the contentious issues and find amicable solutions to them.

Idris stated that the Federal Government’s team had been negotiating with the organized labour and expressed hopes that the issue could be resolved within the next seven days.

“It has been quite challenging but we thank God that we are at this point. We thank labour that its leaders have suspended the strike early yesterday.

“On government’s side, the President has just summoned a meeting of all those negotiating on behalf of the Federal Government, led by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, and the Minister of Finance was there, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning. Myself, the Minister of State for Labour, the GMD of the NNPC were all there to look at those issues.

“The President has directed the Minister of Finance to do the numbers and get back to him between today (yesterday) and tomorrow (today), so we can have some figures ready for negotiation with labour.

“Let me say that Mr. President is determined to go with what the committee has said. He is also looking at the welfare of Nigerians. Like I have said earlier, government is not an opponent of labour discussions. It is not an opponent of wage increase.

“But what is there is that government is always desirous of ensuring that there is a balance between what government pronouncement is and what realities are on ground and, therefore, will work assiduously to ensure that whatever we do, whatever promises government makes will be kept. That is the idea of this meeting.

“The President has given a marching order to all those who negotiate on behalf of the government and all those also who are representatives of other sectors, the Organized Private Sector, OPS, the sub-nationals come together, so we can have a new wage award that is acceptable, sustainable and also realistic for Nigeria.

“A wage award is not just that of the federal government, like I mentioned earlier. The subnationals are involved, the OPS is involved, and organised labour is involved. It was a labour that stepped out during those proceedings.

‘’Now that we have come back to the negotiating table, all of us will work together again, seriously within the next one week, to ensure that we have a new wage for Nigeria that is acceptable, sustainable and realistic for all Nigerians.”