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New minimum wage for whole nation – Akpabio

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President of the Senate, Sen. Godswill Akpabio, on Monday said the national minimum wage was for the whole nation.

Akpabio made the remark during the signing ceremony of the Minimum Wage Act (Amendment) Bill into law by President Bola Tinubu at the State House.

He said the new national  minimum wage was for the Federal Government, states, local governments, the private sector and even individual employers.

“So, I think this is a great day for the workers in the country. We are not only doubling the minimum wage, we have added something on top. Initially, it was N30,000, now it is N70,000.

“Like I said, this is minimum, this is not maximum. Any employer that has a capacity can pay as much as you want. But no Nigerian worker will offer services and be paid anything less than N70,000 from today.

“That is the implication of this act. It applies all over the nation. And we are excited that this is happening at a time like this through President Bola Ahmed Tinubu; a man who cares for the Nigerian workers,” he said.

He said the entirety of the National Assembly moved quickly and passed the bill in one day out of excitement.

“We felt that this was not something we could delay. So, I think the workers are happy.
“I want to use this opportunity to call on those who are attempting to foment trouble; that you have a right to protest. It is your fundamental right. It is there in the constitution.

“But you don’t have a right to destabilise the country. The right to protest should not be turned into the right to unleash violence. It’s very clear that people who are behind this are very amorphous, very faceless,” said Akpabio.

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He said the current hardship experienced by Nigerians was not caused by the Tinubu administration, which was just one year old.

“It is the outcome of years of insecurity. Many people could not go to farms for almost 10 years and  know that and the President has risen to the occasion.

“Every food item that is coming in now will come in without any restrictions; bring in food because Nigerians need to eat. And then at the same time, most things are coming in with a lot of waivers.

“So, for me, I’m excited that yes, indeed, the government is doing what it should. And we the leaders in the National Assembly, we are touching our various constituencies,” he said.

He appealed to the youth not to allow any group to mislead them politically noting that destruction of any property would cause Nigeria money.

He said the bill to finance the new minimum wage had gone very far, and that he expected it to be signed into law by Wednesday.

Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, who represented Alhaji Tajudeen Abbas, Speaker of the House of Representatives, said the signing into law of the minimum wage bill by the President showed that he cared about the Nigerian people.

“So, I think this movement from N30,000 to N70,000 and reducing the negotiation from five to three years is a clear demonstration of a commitment to redirect, refocus and reposition Nigeria for greatness,” he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that President Tinubu had on July 18 increased the Federal Government’s offer on the national minimum wage from N62,000 to N70,000, with an assurance that it would be reviewed after three years, instead of five years.

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The President said the labour leaders challenged the thinking faculty of leadership, hence the government reviewed its position and approved a new N70,000 minimum wage. (NAN)

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JUST IN: Supreme Court sets aside judgment recognising Abure as LP’s National Chairman

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The Supreme Court has set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Abuja recognising Julius Abure as the National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP).

In a unanimous judgment on Friday, a five-member panel of the apex court held that the Court of Appeal lacked the jurisdiction to have pronounced Abure National Chairman of the LP having earlier found that the substance of the case was about the party’s leadership.

It held that issue of leadership was internal affair of a party over which courts lacked jurisdiction.

The court allowed the appeal filed by Senator Ester Nenadi Usman and one other and held that it was meritorious.

It proceeded to dismiss the cross-appeal filed by the Abure faction of the LP got being unmeritorious.

Details shortly…

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Hakeem Baba-Ahmed resigns as presidential political adviser

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Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, special adviser on political matters to Vice-President Kashim Shettima, has resigned from his position, According to Daily Trust.

The newspaper quoted sources as saying that the former spokesperson of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) resigned two weeks ago.

President Bola Tinubu appointed Baba-Ahmed as special adviser on political matters to Shettima in September 2023.

Baba-Ahmed is the elder sibling of Datti Baba-Ahmed, vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election.

Baba-Ahmed served as chief of staff to Bukola Saraki, former senate president, from 2017-2019.

CONFRONTATION WITH MATAWALLE OVER NEF

In April 2024, Bello Matawalle, minister of state for defence, described the NEF as a “political paperweight” after the group stated that the north made a mistake voting Tinubu in 2023.

In his reaction to Matawalle’s remarks, Baba-Ahmed said it would have served the Tinubu administration better if Matawalle had listed his achievements as minister — and the achievements of the other northern appointees — instead of attacking NEF.

“Scathing criticism of NEF by a junior minister of defence, Matawalle, is ill-advised. He could have done a better job for this admin if he identified contributions of especially northern ministers and other appointees like me to improving security and reducing poverty in the North,” Baba-Ahmed said.

In a riposte, the minister said any appointee must defend and promote the administration they work for.

“Dr. Baba-Ahmed’s relationship and affinity with Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) is well-known,” Matawalle said.

“The fact now is that he is an appointee of the administration as Special Adviser and it is incumbent on him to work for the success of the government he is part of, protect and defend the government against unjust and vicious attacks from those who hide under ethnic and other primordial interests to heat up the polity for myopic reasons.

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“It is pertinent to state that every appointee of President Tinubu including Dr. Baba-Ahmed owes the government a copious duty to promote, elucidate and advance the good works and commendable efforts of the government across all sectors.”

He added that northern appointees must defend the government or take their exit.

Matawalle is a native of Zamfara while Baba-Ahmed hails from Kaduna.

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INEC: We are not partisan in failed recall of Natasha

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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has denied being partisan in handling the failed recall of the Senator representing Kogi Central, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.

The Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman of INEC, Rotimi Oyekanmi, who was on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, explained how the Commission handled the process.

“In the case of the Kogi Central District, we received a petition and a cover letter and of course what Nigerians were saying was that we were taking sides,” Oyekanmi said on the programme.

INEC logo and Senator Natasha Akpoti (Kogi-Central PDP)
INEC logo and Senator Natasha Akpoti (Kogi-Central PDP)

“But what happened was that in the covering letter, the representatives of the petitioners did not include their address as required in our regulations and guidelines and what we just did was to ask them to supply their address, it has nothing to do with the petition.

“And of course, there is nowhere in the law where INEC is asked to reject a petition just because the cover letter did not contain the address. So, there was no hanky-panky in what we did.”

Earlier on Thursday, INEC rejected the petition to recall Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan, saying that it has not met the requirements.

The electoral commission said the petition to recall Senator Natasha did not meet constitutional requirements.

Senator Natasha was suspended for breaching Senate rules, prompting some of her constituents to initiate her recall. They claimed the move was to ensure their constituency did not lack representation following the suspension of the 45-year-old senator.

Asked whether there could be a repeat of the recall process, the INEC spokesperson said the law did not specify if the process could be repeated and how many times.

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“The law just talks about the threshold, the threshold meaning that if you want to recall, you must have, in addition to your petition, 50 per cent plus one signatures. The law did not specify how many times you can undertake that,” he said.

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