The National Labour Congress (NLC) has embarked on an indefinite strike action in at least five states over the failure of state governments to implement the N70,000 minimum wage approved by President Bola Tinubu in July.

The NLC members said they were embarking on the industrial action due to the state government’s lack of commitment to implementing the new wage for public servants.

It further stated that the action was necessary as most of the state governments had only made verbal commitments without formal agreement or financial backing.

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The Punch reported that the industrial action was set to take place in five of the 36 states of the federation including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Monday. The states embarking on the strike action are Cross River, Nasarawa, Ebonyi, Kaduna and Zamfara.

While Emmanuel Ugboaja, the General Secretary of the NLC, stated in a letter that 16 states (Abia, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Enugu, Federal Capital Territory, Imo, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Oyo, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara) were yet to pay the minimum wage, media reports showed that some of them had started to negotiate with their workers not to join the strike action.

Since the approval of the new N70,000 by the Tinubu-led administration, public servants look forward to wages amid Nigeria’s harsh economic situation.

In September, FIJ reported how some public servants were forced to only go to work twice or thrice a week due to the delayed implementation of the new wage and high transportation costs.