Civil servants in Nigeria, represented by the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council (JNPSNC), have formally demanded that President Bola Tinubu intervene to address the escalating cost-of-living crisis. In a letter addressed to the head of state, the union side called for the stabilization of petrol prices at N500 per litre and the immediate approval of a new wage award that includes upward reviews of salaries and allowances across the public service.
The workers also requested the immediate constitution of a committee to negotiate a new National Minimum Wage ahead of January 2027. The JNPSNC cited a recent surge in fuel prices, which have reached N1,430 per litre or more in certain locations, as a primary driver of the worsening economic hardship facing Nigerian workers.
According to the council, the removal of the fuel subsidy three years ago triggered an astronomical increase in fuel costs, resulting in multiplier effects on the prices of essential commodities throughout the economy. The union stated that these developments have made life increasingly unbearable for public sector employees and are creating palpable tension among workers and the broader population.
The JNPSNC has given the Federal Government until Wednesday, September 30, 2026, to take action on these demands. The workers argued that the current economic conditions necessitate structural changes rather than temporary relief measures, emphasizing that reducing fuel costs to N500 per litre would have a significant positive impact on the wider economy.
“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 said in the letter.
The union maintained that food palliatives are not a sustainable solution to the ongoing economic crisis. Instead, they stressed that a more effective intervention would be to lower the cost of fuel, a measure they believe would alleviate pressure on the prices of other goods and services across the country.
<small>Source: Daily Post Nigeria — read the original story there.</small>
