May Day 2026: Nigerian workers need a lift

TODAY, Nigeria’s workforce joins millions across the globe to mark Workers’ Day, a ritual meant to honour the sweat and sacrifice of labour that sustain governance and drive development.

The World Bank estimates Nigeria’s labour force at 113.35 million out of a population of 237 million. Alarmingly, about 90 per cent of these workers operate in the informal sector.

As always, workers will troop out in colourful attire, march in choreographed rhythms, sing solidarity songs, and deliver speeches celebrating labour and demanding rights. But that is where the pageantry ends.

Beneath the fanfare lies a grim, unchanging reality defined by hardship, hunger, and quiet desperation, often punctuated by protest.

Unemployment remains troublingly high, regardless of the shifting metrics used to measure it.

Wages are abysmal, welfare is neglected, and morale is dangerously low. These conditions mock the very essence of Workers’ Day.

The hardship deepened in 2023 after President Bola Tinubu removed the petrol subsidy and floated the naira. Since then, survival has become a daily struggle for millions.

The new N70,000 monthly minimum wage, roughly $50, is not just inadequate; it is insulting. Compare that to a $16.5 hourly minimum wage in places like California and New York, and the disparity becomes staggering.

Meanwhile, food prices have spiralled beyond reach. Staples such as beans, rice, fish, meat, eggs, garri, yam flour, cooking oil, pepper, onions, and tomatoes are now luxuries for many households.

Workers now live hand-to-mouth, while their dependents scrape by in indignity.

Food inflation climbed to 12.12 per cent in February 2026, up from 8.89 per cent in January, a punishing rise in just one month.

Fuel costs have compounded the crisis. With petrol selling between N1,300 and N1,400 per litre, partly due to the US/Israeli-Iran conflict, many car owners have abandoned their vehicles, while commuters are squeezed dry by transport fares.

In these conditions, a realistic minimum wage should range between N300,000 and N400,000, particularly in expensive cities like Abuja, Lagos, and Port Harcourt.

The widening gap between income and living costs has entrenched mass poverty. By the World Bank’s benchmark, anyone living on less than $3 (about N3,500) a day or roughly N120,000 monthly is poor. This exposes the N70,000 minimum wage as a cruel illusion.

For millions of Nigerian workers, life is harsh and unforgiving. Basic needs such as food, healthcare, education, and shelter are increasingly out of reach. Public schools are failing, leaving children’s futures uncertain.

The situation has become absurd. Reports indicate that lecturers at the University of Lagos now sleep in their offices because they cannot afford housing nearby. In Yaba, a self-contained apartment costs about N1.9 million, while a three-bedroom flat averages N3.5 million.

Even feeding children properly has become a luxury. Nigeria carries the world’s second-highest burden of stunted children, with 32 per cent of under-fives affected. About two million children suffer severe acute malnutrition, while over 30 million people face acute food insecurity, according to the World Bank.

To be fair, Tinubu’s reforms have boosted revenues across all tiers of government. Yet, despite increased allocations, many states still refuse or fail to implement the new minimum wage.

Official statistics, based on methodologies from the National Bureau of Statistics and the International Labour Organisation, suggest unemployment hovered between 3.0 and 4.9 per cent in 2025.

But this masks a harsher truth: millions of young Nigerians, over 60 per cent of the population, are underemployed or trapped in precarious self-employment.

When wages cannot sustain life, workers resort to self-help, and corruption thrives. This has been Nigeria’s recurring tragedy.

Retirees fare no better. Many states owe pensions, while some retirees survive on as little as N30,000 monthly after decades of service.

Last year, PenCom Director-General Omolola Oloworaran revealed that over 75 million informal sector workers are excluded from the Contributory Pension Scheme, condemning them to zero pension and no gratuity.

Some states deduct pensions monthly without remitting them to their retirement savings accounts. This is bad governance. The labour centres should wage a war against such state governments.

Nigeria also lacks a meaningful social safety net. Public services are collapsing. Schools are dilapidated. Rural roads remain neglected. Healthcare is scandalously expensive. Treating malaria alone can exceed N15,000, while diagnostic tests are out of reach for many.

Primary Health Centres are grossly inadequate, poorly equipped, and suffer from minimal staff training nationwide.

For productivity to improve, workers must be paid living wages. Anything less guarantees stagnation.

Yet, Nigeria’s political elite appear indifferent. Workers who toil for decades retire into poverty, while governors who serve just four or eight years walk away with extravagant pensions.

Since 2007, many states have enacted laws granting former governors’ lavish benefits, including fully funded houses in state capitals and Abuja, fleets of cars replaced every few years, generous allowances, free healthcare for themselves and their families, and domestic staff.

According to the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, by 2017, 21 states had paid N37.4 billion in pensions to just 47 former governors.

Worse still, some of these beneficiaries simultaneously earn salaries as senators or ministers.

While states like Abia have repealed such laws, others persist in this injustice, often increasing benefits periodically.

Contrast this with countries like the United Kingdom, where healthcare, including surgery, is free. Nigeria must learn from such systems.

Indeed, today’s inflationary reality lends credibility to Labour’s earlier demand for a N615,000 minimum wage, once dismissed as unrealistic during 2024 negotiations.

The government must urgently stabilise the economy so that workers’ earnings can at least guarantee dignity.

Labour unions, however, have not helped matters. Over the years, they have grown timid and ineffective, failing to aggressively defend workers’ interests.

The Nigeria Labour Congress and other labour centres must rediscover their voice. May Day should be more than a ritual; it should be a rallying point for real change.

Labour’s silence has been deafening. During the August 1–10, 2024 #EndBadGovernance protests, where over 175 people were injured and 1,154 arrested, labour was conspicuously absent. That passivity must end.

Union leaders must wake up and push relentlessly for improved wages, housing support, transport schemes, and comprehensive welfare.

A minimum wage should cover basic nutrition, education, healthcare, and rent.