Nigeria ground to a halt on Monday, with electricity cut and major airports closed, as the country’s largest labour unions began striking to demand a salary increase amid the worst cost of living crisis in decades.
President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms — including ending fuel subsidies — have resulted in surging inflation that has reached a 28-year record high.
During the strike, workers shut down the national electricity grid and drove away operators at a key transmission station, according to the Transmission Company of Nigeria. Efforts to restore power were thwarted by striking workers.
Meanwhile, government workers either failed to show up or blocked entrances to offices, including at airports in the capital of Abuja and the economic hub of Lagos.
The aviation workers’ association directed all members to stay away “until further notice”.
The Nigerian Labour Congress stated on X that they demand a “living wage,” criticizing their current earnings as a “starvation wage”.
Along with the Trade Union Congress, which represents hundreds of thousands of government workers across vital sectors, they are pushing for an increase in the minimum monthly wage from 30,000 naira ($20) to nearly 500,000 naira ($336).
The government has countered with an offer of 60,000 naira ($40).
Information Minister Mohammed Idris warned that meeting the unions’ demands would raise the government’s wage bill by 9.5 trillion naira ($6.3 billion), potentially destabilizing the economy.
Following Nigeria’s president ending the decades-long but costly fuel subsidies on his first day in office in May last year, gas prices more than doubled in one of Africa’s biggest oil producers, causing a sharp increase in prices for public transport and commodities.
Additionally, Tinubu’s government devalued the Naira to attract foreign investment, which further drove up the prices of basic goods in the import-dependent country of more than 210 million people.
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