The Tripartite Committee on Minimum Wage will reconvene on Tuesday, May 23 to further negotiate a reasonable new minimum wage for workers, after the organised labour walked out of the negotiation on May 15.

An invitation letter sent to the labour leaders by the chairman of the committee, Bukar Goni, states that the other members of the committee have agreed to shift grounds from the N48,000 proposal which was made on Wednesday.

The letter appealed to the labour leaders to speak to their members and attend the reconvened meeting next Tuesday.

The organised labour comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have proposed a new minimum wage of N615,000, which is way higher than the N48,000 proposal by the government.

The organised private sector, on the other hand, proposed an initial offer of N54,000. After dumping the talks, the labour leaders addressed a press conference where they expressed their anger over the Federal Government’s offer.

They blamed the government and the private sector for the breakdown in negotiation.

May 31 Deadline
The Federal Government had failed to present a nationally acceptable minimum wage to Nigerians before the May 1 Labour Day.

The situation has forced labour to be at loggerheads with the government. In the wake of the tussle, the NLC President Joe Ajaero insisted on the N615,000 minimum wage, arguing that the amount was arrived at after an analysis of the economic situation worsened by the hike in the cost of living and the needs of an average Nigerian family of six.

Ajaero and labour leaders have given the Federal Government a May 31 deadline to meet their demands.

On January 30, Vice President Kashim Shettima inaugurated the 37-member tripartite committee to come up with a new minimum wage.

With its membership cutting across federal, and state governments, the private sector, and organised labour, the panel is to recommend a new national minimum wage for the country.

During the committee’s inauguration, the Vice President urged the members to “speedily” arrive at a resolution and submit their reports early.

“This timely submission is crucial to ensure the emergence of a new minimum wage,” Shettima said.

The 37-man committee is chaired by the former Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Goni Aji.

With the cost of living rising following the removal of fuel subsidy, calls for a new minimum wage have continued to make headlines in Nigeria.

The police in Kwara State have commenced an investigation into the disappearance of the umbilical cord and placenta of a newborn baby at Government Cottage Hospital, Iloffa in the Oke-Ero Local Government Area of the state.

The mother, identified as Mrs C. Williams, a class teacher at Orota Secondary School, Odo-Owa, was reported to have had the child on Sunday night but was not given the umbilical cord and the placenta by the hospital’s workers.

Five of the workers were later arrested in connection with the missing parts and were being detained by the general Investigation unit of the State Criminal Investigation Department of the command in Ilorin.

The suspects detained by the police include a resident doctor, three nurses and a ward attendant at the hospital.

It was gathered that the police were invited when efforts to settle the controversy at various levels failed.

It was further gathered that it took the efforts of elders of Odo-Owa community to calm some angry youths who suspected foul play and were about to burn down the hospital on Tuesday over the incident.

Williams, while narrating her ordeal, said that she was rushed to the hospital while experiencing labour pains on Sunday afternoon and gave birth to a baby at about 7 pm the same day.

“I was feeling some labour pains on Sunday and I got to the cottage hospital, some minutes past 1 pm on Sunday, and told the nurse I met on duty that I was having contractions; she was the one that attended to me after confirming that I was truly in labour.

“She took me into the labour room and asked me to wait because I still had more time. Not quite long after I came, the doctor also came in and instructed the nurse to usher me into the labour room,” she said.

She said that after having the baby, the following morning, she was discharged and allowed to go home.

She, however, said that the hospital workers gave her a bag containing her items but did not give her the placenta and the umbilical cord of the baby when they asked her to go home.

“Although they handed a black nylon bag to me, I discovered that there were two missing items inside the nylon; they are the umbilical cord and the placenta,” she said.

Police Public Relations Officer, Ejire-Adeyemi Toun, confirmed the incident, adding that the investigation was ongoing.

“The police are investigating the incident and five suspects have been arrested in connection with it,” the PPRO said.

1. Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has said members of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP would decide his fate, come the 2027 general elections. He said it was too early to decide whether he would vie for the presidency in the forthcoming elections.

2. A medical doctor and founder of MedContour Services Ltd., Dr Anuoluwapo Adepoju, who conducted a failed plastic surgery that resulted in the death of one Nneka Onwuzuligbo in 2020, has been convicted by the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos.

3. No fewer than 200 people have been killed by a dangerous humid heat that has been experienced from the 1st to the 13th of May in Yola, the Adamawa State capital. Unofficial records at the Yola Cemetery Corporation, YCC, located in the Damare area of the capital city, put the death toll from the unusually experienced excessive heat from May 1 to 13, 2024 at 400.

4. The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, has described the judiciary as the biggest danger to democracy in Nigeria. Obi stated that there has been a decline in the judiciary, stressing that the problem of the country is not the Independent National Electoral Commission but the judiciary.

5. A tank farm which the Lagos Fire Service said belonged to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited went up in flames in Apapa, Lagos State. A video of the fire incident surfaced on social media on Friday morning. But the NNPCL denied that the incident happened at its depot, saying it was from a pipeline at Honeywell Oil and Gas.

6. Operatives of the Department of State Services, on Friday, went on the rampage at the National Assembly Complex, Abuja as they manhandled two senior staff members, John Nnadi of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) and Chris Odoh, a Deputy Director.

7. Three children have been rescued from a fire that gutted a storey building on Obi Onuorah Crescent behind Okowe Plaza in Asaba, the Delta State capital. It was reported that a roof and two apartments were razed as property worth millions of naira, lost.

8. The Kano State Police Command has confirmed the death of 15 persons from a mosque attack in Gadan village, Gezawa Local Government Area of the state, following a petrol bomb attack on worshippers. A man had on Wednesday allegedly set the mosque after he sprinkled petrol in the mosque and locked its doors, trapping worshippers.

9. The Kwara State Police Command, has commenced a discreet investigation into the mysterious disappearance of the umbilical cord and placenta of a newborn baby at Government Cottage Hospital, Iloffa in Oke-Ero Local Government Area of the state last Sunday. Five health workers who are suspects in the matter are currently being detained by the General Investigation Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department of the command in Ilorin.

10. The Federal Government, on Friday, announced its stoppage of the issuance of electricity regulatory autonomy to state governments as it commenced a review of the policy. Power Minister, Adebayo Adelabu said it appeared the state governments and other stakeholders had no clear idea yet of what it takes to operate an electricity market.