…Demands social safety nets for vulnerable Nigerians
From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) has decried rising poverty in Nigeria despite ongoing economic reforms, calling on the Federal Government to strengthen social safety nets for vulnerable citizens.
The union also demanded a fairer distribution of national resources, a progressive tax system and increased public spending on essential services to cushion the effects of economic hardship on workers and low-income households.
NASU National President, Comrade (Dr.) Makolo Hassan, made the call in his welcome address at the union’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held in Abuja on Tuesday.
Hassan said the success of economic reforms should be measured by their impact on ordinary Nigerians rather than the approval they received from business and political leaders.
“The true measure of any economic reform is not the applause it receives in boardrooms, but the difference it makes in the lives of ordinary Nigerians,” he said.
He said workers and their families continued to contend with rising living costs, declining purchasing power and deepening poverty, arguing that reforms should not be celebrated while households struggled to meet basic needs.
The NASU president cited World Bank estimates that about 63 per cent of Nigerians lived below the national poverty line in 2025, describing the situation as a reflection of the economic difficulties confronting the country.
He said the widening gap between political and economic elites and ordinary workers raised serious questions about social justice and the distribution of national wealth.
“Nigeria’s wealth must serve the many, not merely enrich the few,” Hassan said.
He called for a progressive tax system that would ensure that individuals and businesses with greater financial capacity contributed fairly to national development.
Hassan also urged the government to prioritise workers, low-income families and vulnerable communities in the allocation of public resources.
On social protection, the union president said Nigeria needed transparent, adequately funded and accountable programmes capable of providing meaningful support to unemployed persons, children, persons with disabilities, elderly citizens and poor households.
He warned against treating social intervention programmes as occasional political gestures or instruments of patronage, insisting that they should become dependable components of national social policy.
According to him, social protection is essential to preserving human dignity, promoting stability and ensuring that the burden of economic reforms does not fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable members of society.
Hassan maintained that economic reforms would only command the confidence of Nigerian workers when they produced tangible improvements in living standards and were accompanied by fairness, shared prosperity and adequate protection for vulnerable citizens.
The union also called for an urgent review of the N70,000 national minimum wage, arguing that rising costs of food, transportation, housing, electricity and healthcare had eroded workers’ purchasing power.
It demanded periodic wage reviews and cost-of-living adjustments to ensure that workers’ earnings remained responsive to prevailing economic realities.
NASU further urged the government to address unemployment, revive domestic production and strengthen public healthcare and education, while ensuring that increased revenues accruing to states and local governments translated into improved public services.
The union said economic growth should be reflected in decent employment, living wages, reduced poverty and an improved standard of living for Nigerians.
Hassan stressed that workers should not continue to bear the consequences of economic reforms without adequate protection and measurable benefits.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Muhammad Dingyadi, said the Federal Government was aware of the challenges economic reforms posed to workers and remained committed to addressing their effects.
Dingyadi, who spoke at the meeting, said the administration of President Bola Tinubu had implemented the N70,000 national minimum wage with unprecedented speed and was pursuing additional measures to improve workers’ welfare and purchasing power.
“This is why this administration implemented the N70,000 minimum wage with an unprecedented speed and continues to engage, organise, and labour on other measures to enhance welfare and the purchasing power of the Nigerian market,” he said.
The minister assured NASU that his ministry would continue to engage the union and other labour organisations to address workers’ demands through social dialogue and collective bargaining.
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