Monday 06 April, 2026

The ₦70,000 minimum wage has been law for 22 months. Some governors just decided it isn't.

The Nigeria Labour Congress issued a directive on Friday that should be the most routine kind of institutional communication. Workers in states that haven't implemented the N70,000 minimum wage will observe May Day on the streets. Not in government halls. Not in auditoriums with the governor's portrait on the banner. On the streets, processions ending at government houses, demands submitted at the gate.

This is what enforcement looks like when the law has no teeth.

Tinubu signed the minimum wage bill on July 29, 2024. Twenty-two months ago. The moment the ink dried, it became binding on every employer in Nigeria, including state governments. The law is clear. The compliance is not.

The machinery behind this is specific. Nigeria has no centralised wage enforcement mechanism. No body that monitors whether states are paying. No automatic penalty when a governor ignores the Act. No federal sanction that triggers at the point of non-compliance. The NLC can embarrass. It can mobilise. It can ban indoor May Day celebrations and mandate street processions. It cannot compel. The governor knows this. That's why the calculation keeps coming out the same way every month.

The worker most affected isn't the civil servant in Abuja whose ministry has federal access. It's the primary school teacher in a state running a structural deficit. The local government health worker two administrative tiers removed from FAAC. The security guard at a state institution who hasn't been told whether this month's payment will be partial or nothing.

N70,000 is roughly $42. It was already inadequate when it was signed. Inflation since then has made it more so. The NLC has been pushing for an upward review since January. The next statutory review under the 2024 Act isn't due until 2027. So the current fight isn't even about a living wage. It's about getting the inadequate wage that was already negotiated, signed, and ignored.

The worker standing outside the government house on May 1 understands all of this. That's what makes it exhausting rather than surprising. Nigeria's worker protections exist as law. They exist as announcements. They exist in the speeches governors give at Labour Day events in the years they do comply. What they often don't exist as is money in a bank account at the end of the month.

The NLC directive orders all state councils in defaulting states to assemble workers at union secretariats by 7am on May 1. From there they march to the government house or the state assembly. Demands are submitted at the gate. The governor is inside. The workers are outside. The law that's supposed to protect them is somewhere in between, waiting for someone to enforce it who has the power to compel rather than just the right to protest.