Civil Servants Wants Petrol At 500 per Litre, New Minimum Wage

Civil servants under the aegis of Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council, JNPSNC, Trade Union Side, have asked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to address the worsening economic hardship facing workers and their dependants.

The workers called on the Federal Government to stabilise the price of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, at N500 per litre, approve an immediate Wage Award and upwardly review salaries and allowances across the public service.They also demanded the immediate constitution of a committee to negotiate a new National Minimum Wage ahead of January 2027.

In a letter addressed to the President, the workers said the recent increase in fuel prices to N1,430 per litre and above in some locations had further worsened the cost-of-living crisis.

They gave the Federal Government until Wednesday, September 30, 2026, to take action on their demands, warning that the prevailing hardship was creating palpable tension among workers and Nigerians.The JNPSNC said the removal of fuel subsidy three years ago had triggered an astronomical increase in fuel prices and produced multiplier effects on the prices of essential commodities across the economy.

The council said the situation had made life increasingly unbearable for workers, adding that the provision of food palliatives was not a sustainable solution to the economic crisis.

It said, “It has dawned on Nigerian workers that the provision of palliatives such as bags of rice, vegetable oil, garri, among other edible foods, is as good as weaponising poverty against Nigerians 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 argued that a more sustainable intervention would be to reduce the cost of fuel to N500 per litre, saying the measure would have a multiplier effect across the economy.

“It is preferable that the Federal Government should provide an intervention that will trickle down to all Nigerians by making fuel available at an affordable amount as low as N500 (five hundred Naira), the amount at which fuel was being sold when the subsidy was first removed in the year 2023,” the group said.On wages, the council demanded the immediate introduction of a Wage Award covering Federal, State and Local Government workers.

“Wage Award as an urgent intervention and upward review of salaries and allowances of all serving Public Servants in the Nigeria Public Service should be provided with immediate effect to cut across all Federal, State and Local Government workers,” it said.

The workers also demanded the immediate setting up of a committee to negotiate the new National Minimum Wage, saying early commencement of the process would prevent delays in implementation.
“There is urgent need to immediately set up committee for the negotiation of New National Minimum Wage to accelerate the commencement of the New National Minimum Wage before 2027 so that it can take effect from January, 2027,” the council stated.