The National Council of State, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, has approved N27,000 as the minimum wage for the country.
The council approved the amount at its meeting in Abuja on Tuesday.
A minimum wage bill is now expected to be sent to the National Assembly on Wednesday.
Minister of labour and employment, Chris Ngige, said the Federal Government will pay its workers N30,000.
He said the states are at liberty to augment the new agreement as they see fit.
The amount approved by the Council of State is N3,000 short of the N30,000 that the Tripartite Committee on Review of National Minimum Wage recommended.
The committee, chaired by a former Head of Service of the Federation, Ama Pepple, had submitted the report, which contained the recommended figure, to Mr Buhari on November 6, 2018, after many months of deliberations.
Prior to the committee’s recommendation, in October 2018, state governors had offered to pay N22,500 as minimum wage.
Nine days after the committee recommended N30,000, on November 15, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum insisted that the states cannot pay the amount, leading to criticism by organised labour which insisted on N30,000.
On January 8, 2019, the Nigeria Labour Congress held a nationwide protest over what it said was the delay by the Federal Government to transmit a new minimum wage bill to the National Assembly.
