Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has asked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to increase the national minimum wage.
In a statement issued by Phrank Shaibu, Director of Strategic Communications of the ADC Presidential Campaign Council, Atiku said the removal of fuel subsidy by Tinubu had pushed up prices of essential commodities and subjected many Nigerians into hardship.
While backing the organised labour’s demand for a substantial increase in the minimum wage, the Former Vice President accused Tinubu of presiding over what he described as ruthless economic squeeze in which workers are paid more on paper and condemned to live on less.
He said the current country’s minimum wage is not meeting the needs of families, accusing the administration of celebrating a reform he said had become an insult to Nigerians whose wages vanish between the filling station and the food market.
“The government pulled away the floor, offered workers a flimsy umbrella and now applauds itself while the rain beats down on them.
“Fuel, transport, food and rent have devoured their earnings. This is a callous way to govern people who work hard and ask only for the means to live.
“Tinubu asked Nigerians to make sacrifices and treated the suffering that followed as an afterthought. Those with the least have been made to carry the heaviest load. That is the cruel arithmetic of this cost-of-living crisis.”
He said with the current fuel price, the ₦70,000 could buy only 50 litres of petrol, leaving workers worried about how to attend to their other needs.
Atiku said the increase of the minimum wage from ₦30,000 to ₦70,000 had failed to restore the purchasing power of Nigerians.
According to the statement, the ₦30,000 minimum wage before the Tinubu-led administration could buy roughly 118 litres at the national average petrol price of ₦254.06 per litre at the time.
“At ₦1,400 a litre, the entire ₦70,000 monthly minimum wage buys just 50 litres of petrol. What does the worker take home to feed the children? What pays the rent? What gets that worker back to work on Monday?
“The payslip has grown, but the fuel it can buy has more than halved. Tinubu has given workers a larger number and left them with a smaller life. That is hardship dressed up as a wage increase,” he said.
Atiku noted that Nigeria’s wage floor compares poorly with those of several oil-producing and African economies.
According to the statement, exchange rates from 24 July 2026, Libya’s monthly minimum wage was worth approximately ₦213,000; Algeria’s, ₦245,000; Equatorial Guinea’s, ₦302,000; and Gabon’s, ₦351,000. Even Benin Republic’s minimum wage stood above Nigeria’s when converted at those rates.
“Wage rules and living costs differ across countries, he said, but those differences cannot make ₦70,000 adequate for a Nigerian worker facing today’s prices.”
The ADC presidential, who likened the Nigerian worker to the engine of the country’s life, said it was wrong to expect the engine to run without fuel.
He, however, asked the President to review workers’ salaries and bring down the costs of commodities in order to cushion the effects of the hardship in the country.
“The Nigerian worker is the engine of this country’s productive life, yet Tinubu expects that engine to run without fuel. A worker leaves home before dawn, gives the country a full day’s labour, then stands at a bus stop wondering whether the money left will pay the fare home or put food on the family table. That is a national disgrace. You cannot work people to exhaustion, pay them into poverty and lecture them about productivity. If a full month’s wage cannot sustain a worker’s family, government has failed the people who keep this country moving.
“Petrol does not stay at the pump. Its price follows the farmer to market, enters the baker’s oven and appears in the fare a parent pays to take a child to school. Government then announces a wage increase and watches those costs swallow it before the month has begun.”
Atiku challenged President Tinubu to agree immediately to a substantial minimum-wage increase that reflects the real cost of food, transport, rent and power.
“If he has no intention of raising workers’ pay, he should say so plainly and stop stringing the Nigeria Labour Congress and other labour leaders along. Nigerian workers deserve an answer, not another round of meetings that ends where it began. I will begin the work of raising the wage floor from my first day in office,” Atiku said.
“Tinubu has eight months left in this term. Nigerian workers cannot be told to endure eight more months of hunger while his government debates whether their wages are enough.
“He must raise the wage floor and bring down the costs crushing families. From May 2027, my policies will protect the people: support Nigerian production, deliver relief at the pump and provide targeted help to those hit hardest by the cost-of-living crisis,” Atiku said.
“If we are serious about repairing the damage, better pay must be accompanied by lower living costs. Anything less leaves the Nigerian worker as the guinea pig in Tinubu’s economic experiment,” he said.
Atiku said his plan for a targeted production subsidy would support petroleum products refined in Nigeria and sold to Nigerians, subject to a firm spending cap, public accounting and independent audit.
Atiku further added that government support must produce measurable relief at the pump, reaffirming his commitment to realistic wage adjustments, targeted social protection and measures to stabilise the cost of essential goods and energy.
“Nigerians do not eat FAAC figures. A full treasury is no answer to an empty kitchen. The test of this government is whether the men and women who work all month can live on what they earn.
“A living wage must buy a living. It is not a privilege; it is a basic right. Tinubu has made life painfully expensive. I will make life affordable again,” Atiku said.
