Atiku Demands Minimum Wage Increase as Petrol Hits N1,400 per Litre

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has called on President Bola Tinubu to immediately raise Nigeria’s national minimum wage, arguing that the current N70,000 monthly salary has been rendered inadequate by soaring petrol prices and the rising cost of living.

In a statement issued Sunday by Phrank Shaibu, Director of Strategic Communications of the ADC Presidential Campaign Council, Atiku backed organised labour’s demand for a substantial wage increase, saying the increase from N30,000 to N70,000 in 2024 had failed to restore workers’ purchasing power.

Atiku illustrated the decline by comparing how much petrol workers could buy under different wage regimes. “At N1,400 a litre, the entire N70,000 monthly minimum wage buys just 50 litres of petrol,” he said.

“What does the worker take home to feed the children? What pays the rent? What gets that worker back to work on Monday?”.

He noted that at the April 2023 national average petrol price of N254.06 per litre, the old N30,000 minimum wage could purchase roughly 118 litres.

“The payslip has grown, but the fuel it can buy has more than halved,” Atiku said. “Tinubu has given workers a larger number and left them with a smaller life. That is hardship dressed up as a wage increase”.

Atiku blamed the Tinubu administration’s removal of the petrol subsidy for the economic squeeze, saying the government “pulled away the floor, offered workers a flimsy umbrella and now applauds itself while the rain beats down on them”.

He added that “fuel, transport, food and rent have devoured their earnings” and described it as “a callous way to govern people who work hard and ask only for the means to live”.

The former vice president also compared Nigeria’s wage floor unfavourably with other African nations.

Using exchange rates from July 24, 2026, he said Libya’s monthly minimum wage was worth approximately N213,000, Algeria’s N245,000, Equatorial Guinea’s N302,000, and Gabon’s N351,000, with Benin Republic also higher than Nigeria’s when converted.

“The Nigerian worker is the engine of this country’s productive life, yet Tinubu expects that engine to run without fuel,” Atiku said. “You cannot work people to exhaustion, pay them into poverty and lecture them about productivity”.

Atiku challenged the president to either approve a substantial wage increase or state plainly that he has no intention of doing so.

“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,” he said. “Nigerian workers deserve an answer, not another round of meetings that ends where it began”.

He vowed to raise the wage floor from his first day in office if elected in 2027.

The demand comes as petrol prices remain elevated across Nigeria, with independent marketers selling at N1,400 per litre and prices reaching N1,500 in parts of the north.

The Federal Government has previously indicated that the N70,000 wage would be reviewed, with Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila saying in June that it “must be honestly reassessed against today’s realities”.