The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has backed demands by civil servants for the Federal Government to reduce petrol to N500 per litre and raise the minimum wage to N500,000 amid worsening economic hardship.
The demands were contained in a letter to President Bola Tinubu by the Trade Union Side of the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council (JNPSNC).
The workers also demanded an immediate wage award for federal, state and local government workers, as well as the constitution of a committee to negotiate a new national minimum wage ahead of January 2027.
They said the recent increase in petrol prices to N1,430 per litre and above in some locations had further worsened the cost-of-living crisis. The workers gave the government until September 30, 2026, to act on their demands.
The council rejected food palliatives as a sustainable solution, saying: “It has dawned on Nigerian workers that the provision of palliatives, such as bags of rice, Indomie, vegetable oil, garri, among other edible foods, is as good as weaponising Nigerians with poverty because it is a pyrrhic intervention which is unsustainable, inaccessible to the majority of Nigeria’s population and also limited to political cronies.”
The workers instead proposed a fuel intervention fund to bring petrol down to N500 per litre, saying the move would have a multiplier effect across the economy.
They also urged government to look inward and stabilise the prices of fuel to an affordable minimum,describing the current PMS price of N1,430 or more as a k+lling amount.
The JNPSNC proposed that an officer on Grade Level 01, Step 1, should earn N500,000 monthly under the 2027 salary template and called for harmonised wages across MDAs.
Backing the demands, NLC Acting General Secretary Benson Upah said: “The demand for a wage award and reduction in the pump price of fuel are very realistic and long overdue.”
He added that rising fuel prices were affecting transportation, food, school fees and other essential expenses.
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