13-7-2025
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has called for the immediate release of labour activist Andrew Uche Emelieze who was detained for attempting to organise a peaceful protest over the Federal government failure to pay the minimum wage any further.
Mr. Emelieze was picked up in Abuja two weeks ago; Atiku said in a statement on his X social media Sunday that his detention “is an affront to democracy, a slap in the face of every Nigerian worker, and a chilling reminder of the authoritarian drift of the President Bola Tinubu administration.”
Atiku said the Tinubu administratration has reneged on its promise to pay Nigerian workers the minimum wage of N35,000 after his fuel subsidy removal sparked an inflation never seen before in the country.
“In a bid to manage the self-inflicted crisis, the administration promised to pay a wage award to federal civil servants as a temporary cushion pending the conclusion of negotiations on a new national minimum wage.
“That promise, like many others under this government, has become a broken covenant,” he said.
Atiku noted that the government took 10 months to agree on a new minimum wage, during which the wage award was intended to serve as a stopgap measure.
“By implication, the federal government owes 10 months of wage award arrears to federal workers. Yet, only six months have been paid and that too after a series of unfulfilled assurances and avoidable delays,” he said.
He said each worker is owed ₦35,000 monthly for four months, amounting to ₦140,000 per person.
Atiku praised some state governments for handling labour issues responsibly but criticised the federal government for showing “callous indifference and utter disdain for workers’ welfare.”