Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has accused President Bola Tinubu’s government of failing to fully pay federal workers their wage awards.
He lamented that Tinubu’s decision to remove the petrol subsidy on his first day in office has buried the average Nigerian under the weight of inflation and hunger.
He insisted that the decision to remove fuel subsidy was hasty and thoughtless, adding that it has triggered widespread economic hardship
Speaking via a statement shared on his X account on Sunday, Atiku accused the incumbent administration of failing to keep its promise to cushion the impact of the subsidy removal through a temporary wage award for federal civil servants.
“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”.
He also condemned the continued detention of Andrew Uche Emelieze, a labour activist, arrested nearly two weeks ago for attempting to organise a peaceful protest over the unpaid wage awards.
“Instead of engaging in dialogue or fulfilling its promises, the government has now resorted to tyranny and suppression of free speech,” he said.
His only ‘crime’ was speaking up for workers abandoned by the state.”
Atiku called for Emelieze’s immediate and unconditional release, saying 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 Tinubu administration.”