By Mohamed Taoheed
Claim
The presidency has proposed N105,000 today as the new national minimum wage to President Bola Tinubu for consideration.
Verdict
False! FactCheckAfrica can confirm that the proposal is spurious. The Presidency has denied it.
Full Text
On 6th June, 2024, a plethora of media outlets reported that Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Mr. Wale Edun, has proposed N105,000 as the new national minimum wage to President Bola Tinubu for his presidential assent.
This claim is not unconnected to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) going on a nationwide strike to demand reforms on economic issues affecting workers in the country.
As of the time of this reporting, the story has been reported by national dailies. Further checks revealed that multiple blogs have carried the same narrative, circulating widely across social media platforms.
The mission to set the record straight led FactCheckAfrica to conduct this verification.
Verification
FactCheckAfrica checked Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser on Media and Strategy to President Bola Tinubu, and found that he described the claim as “false”.
Also, The Whistler quoted Onanuga as saying, “The Honorable Minister of Finance and coordinating minister of the economy, Wale Edun has not proposed N105,000 minimum wage. The contrary story being disseminated is false.
A cursory analysis of the claim on national dailies that published it showed that they all relied on Western Post as the source of the information. We checked the website of Western Post and discovered that they relied on a ‘credible’ but unnamed source.
Finally, the outlet also confirmed later that the story is false. “The story is not correct.” The report has been pulled down and management has ordered necessary administrative and disciplinary actions. We regret the error,” part of their statement reads.
Conclusion
Based on our check, the claim is false. The original source of the information has debunked it with a public apology.
Editor’s Note: FactCheckAfrica observed that national dialies who reported this claim earlier have now either updated it to reflect this finding or brought the story down completely from their websites.
