ABUJA — Former Vice President and presidential aspirant Atiku Abubakar has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to immediately review and increase the ₦70,000 national minimum wage, warning that hyperinflation, rising transport fares, and escalating food costs have completely wiped out workers’ purchasing power.
In a statement issued on Sunday, September 27, 2026, by the Director of Strategic Communications of his campaign team, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku backed the demands of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and organized labor for a wage structure aligned with realistic living expenses.
The opposition leader accused the administration of presiding over an economic squeeze that leaves Nigerian workers earning more on paper while surviving on far less.
“At ₦1,400 a litre, the entire ₦70,000 monthly minimum wage buys just 50 litres of petrol,” Atiku stated. “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.”
Mathematical Deterioration of Purchasing Power
To illustrate the sharp contraction in real wages following the removal of the petrol subsidy and currency floating, Atiku contrasted current market conditions with pre-2023 levels:
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April 2023 Baseline: Under the previous ₦30,000 minimum wage and a national average petrol price of ₦254.06 per litre, a worker’s monthly salary could purchase approximately 118 litres of fuel.
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September 2026 Reality: Under the statutory ₦70,000 minimum wage enacted in July 2024 and pump prices averaging ₦1,400 per litre, the total wage yields barely 50 litres—representing over a 57% drop in fuel purchasing capacity.
Atiku also benchmarked Nigeria’s floor wage against fellow African energy producers—citing higher converted monthly figures in Libya, Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon—arguing that Nigerian workers remain severely underpaid despite the nation’s rising Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) revenues.
“Nigerians do not eat FAAC figures. A full treasury is no answer to an empty kitchen,” Atiku added. “If the administration has no intention of raising workers’ pay, it should say so plainly and stop stringing the Nigeria Labour Congress and other labour leaders along.”
Pledging concrete policy alternatives as the 2027 presidential campaign builds momentum, Atiku promised to kick off negotiations for a substantial wage floor increase on his first day in office if elected, alongside targeted production subsidies on locally refined petroleum products to stabilize baseline prices.
