- By Halimah Olamide
The nationwide strike declared by the Nigerian Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress are expected to begin today.
This was after a meeting called by the National Assembly failed to reach a compromise with leaders of the Labour union on Sunday.
The National Assembly had moved to stop the strike which was declared after workers insisted on N494,000 as the new minimum wage in the country.
Minister of Information Mohammed Idris had said at the weekend that the minimum wage being proposed the workers could break down the country’s economy.
The meeting, presided over by Senate President Godswill Akpabio and House of Representatives Speaker Tajuddeen Abbas, was targeted at making labour to shelve its planned strike action over minimum wage.
In an update shared on its X handle Monday morning, the NLC wrote “Victory comes by Struggle, A Living Wage is Possible.”
Festus Osifo, President of the TUC, confirmed that Akpabio appealed to the workers to shelve the strike saying “The Senate President appealed to us to call off the strike. But we can’t sit here and call off the strike because we have others organs. We will take the appeals to our various organs.
”We don’t have the powers to call off the strike action. For now, the strike action will commence, while we discuss with our organs,”