Chuks Okocha in Abuja
Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has thrown his full weight behind organised labour’s demand for a substantial increase in the minimum wage, accusing President Bola Tinubu of presiding over a ruthless economic squeeze in which workers were paid more on paper and condemned to live on less.
He said the administration’s self-congratulatory talk of reform had become an insult to Nigerians whose wages vanish between the filling station and the food market.
In a statement by the Director of Strategic Communications of the ADC Presidential Campaign Council, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said Tinubu’s reckless removal of the petrol subsidy sent prices soaring before any credible protection was in place for working families.
“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,” Atiku said.
“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?” he said.
Atiku said the increase from ₦30,000 to ₦70,000 had failed to restore purchasing power, saying, at the April 2023 national average petrol price of ₦254.06 per litre, ₦30,000 could buy roughly 118 litres. Today, ₦70,000 buys only 50 litres at ₦1,400 per litre.
“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 compared poorly with those of several oil-producing and African economies.
Using 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 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,” Atiku said.