The Federal Workers Forum has written to President Bola Tinubu and the National Assembly, demanding an increase in the federal minimum wage from N70,000 to N300,000.
The letter, dated September 2 and signed by National Coordinator Andrew Emelieze and General Secretary Ogundele Ayodele, was addressed to the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives through the Clerk of the National Assembly. President Tinubu, the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation were also listed among the recipients.
The forum proposed a full salary review, with Level 1 Step 1 workers earning N300,000 and Level 17 Step 1 officers topping out at N1.5 million. Intermediate levels would range from N510,000 for Level 8 up to N1.2 million for Level 16, according to the structure attached to the letter.
The group argued that the N70,000 minimum wage, agreed between the federal government and organised labour in July 2024, has not been fully implemented across the civil service. It said the 2024 review added a flat N40,000 to salaries at every level rather than the full consequential adjustments workers expected. "Only N40,000 was added to the salaries of every federal worker across all levels," the forum said in the letter.
The N70,000 wage replaced a N30,000 benchmark and is subject to review after three years under the amended minimum wage law Tinubu signed. The forum argued that the review timeline should not stop the government from responding to what it called an emergency decline in workers' purchasing power.
