Director-general of Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS), Ilorin, Kwara State, Comrade Issa Aremu yesterday hailed President Ahmed Bola Tinubu for his commitment to a new minimum and living wage in 2024.

In his reaction to president Tinubu’s New Year message, Aremu commended the president for his commitment to wage-led growth strategy, economic recovery and poverty eradication through payment of adequate living wages in 2024.

He said the president was “on point” to declare wage improvement as “not only good economics” but as “a morally and politically correct thing to do.”

Aremu called on states and local governments, employers of labour and organised labour to align with the vision of President Tinubu in making “2024 a year of mass secured, productive decent work in conditions of human dignity, healthy environment, with negotiated adequate promptly paid minimum and living wages.”

He decried what he called a state of total collapse of wage income due to low, devalued and delayed salary payment that has turned workers into what he called ‘working beggars’ as distinct from dignified value adding work force.

He recalled that 2024 expected tripartite wage negotiations would be the 6th of such national minimum wage review since 1981, (N125), 1990, (N250), 2000, (N5,500), 2011 (N18,000) and 2018 (N30,000), noting that it was remarkable that the president acknowledged the reality of high costs of living and inflation caused by petroleum subsidy removal.

Aremu noted that Tinubu has rightly set the stage for robust constructive collective bargaining for new wage review in line with Nigeria’s labour laws and relevant conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) .