Workers in Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and many other states have started a strike because the government has not started paying the new minimum wage. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) announced the strike, which began on December 2, 2024. This happened after the federal government did not start paying the minimum wage that President Bola Tinubu approved in July.
Abdullahi Kabi, the leader of the National Union of Local Government Employees in the FCT, said that all the local government areas in the FCT will stay closed until the government starts paying the N70,000 minimum wage. Kabi expressed frustration that despite the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, assuring that he does not hold the funds, the implementation has not commenced.
The strike is happening in many states, like Abia, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Enugu, Imo, Nasarawa, and Kaduna. But Yobe State is not part of the strike because the state government has agreed to start paying the minimum wage from December.