By Radarr Africa Business Desk
LAGOS, October 28 (Radarr Africa) – The Federal Government has approved a monthly transport support of N70,000 for public service workers at all levels for six months, starting in November 2026, Naija News reported.
The approval was among the resolutions of a conciliation meeting held on Tuesday, October 27, at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment in Abuja, between government officials and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the newspaper said. An earlier conciliation session took place on October 22.
The resolutions say: “That transport intervention of Seventy Thousand Naira (N70,000) commencing from November 2026”, Naija News quoted the document as saying.
The government also approved arrears of a peculiar allowance, effective May 1, 2026. These will be paid in three equal monthly instalments beginning in November, according to the report.
Naija News said the approvals were recorded in a memorandum of understanding signed at the end of the meeting.
The people named as attending were Timi Yakubu, Director-General of the Budget; Joe Ajaero, president of the NLC; Dr Garba Abdul S.U., Permanent Secretary of the Service Welfare Office in the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation; and Dr Muhammad Maigari Dingyadi, the Minister of Labour and Employment.
The parties also agreed to set up a Minimum Wage Negotiation Committee, which is to begin meeting immediately, Naija News reported. The document records that the two sides disagree on the effective date of implementation of any new minimum wage.
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Other items in the resolutions covered the remuneration of health workers, tax relief, and hazard allowances for agricultural officers, the newspaper said. It did not give the amounts or terms for those items.
The report did not say how many workers the N70,000 support would reach, what it would cost the government, or which budget line would fund it. Naija News also did not say whether the support applies to workers in state governments or only to federal public servants. It described the beneficiaries as public service workers at all levels.
The agreement comes after earlier arrangements between the government and organised labour. In October 2023, after the removal of the petrol subsidy, the government and the NLC and Trade Union Congress (TUC) signed a 15-point memorandum of understanding that included a N35,000 wage award for federal government workers from September 2023, to run until a new national minimum wage was signed into law, according to the Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation.
That 2023 memorandum also included N25,000 a month in cash transfers for three months from October 2023 for 15 million households, and a 30-day suspension of a planned nationwide strike by the NLC and TUC, the ministry’s statement said.
The signatories in 2023 for the NLC were Ajaero and its General Secretary, Emmanuel Ugboaja. The government side was represented by the then Minister of Labour and Employment, Simon Bako Lalong, among others, the statement showed.
Naija News listed the Tuesday approval, together with a separate request by President Bola Tinubu for fresh external loans, among the main business and economy stories in Nigerian newspapers on Wednesday.
