Eight public sector unions have warned that they will begin a three day nationwide warning strike on Friday, 2 October, unless the Federal Government cuts the petrol price to N500 a litre, approves a wage award and opens talks on a new minimum wage before the end of today.
The threat was contained in a statement issued on Tuesday, 29 September, by the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council, and signed by its national secretary, Olowoyo Gbenga, who is also general secretary of the Nigeria Civil Service Union. The council said its 30 September ultimatum remained “sacrosanct” and called on President Bola Tinubu to speak to the demands in his Independence Day broadcast.
According to the statement, the unions want three things addressed at once. The first is a reduction in the pump price of petrol to N500 a litre, which the council said could be achieved through an intervention fund to cover landing costs and support oil and gas operators, alongside the sale of crude to the Dangote Refinery and modular refineries “at appropriate terms”. The second is an immediate wage award to cushion the cost of living, and the third is a tripartite committee to begin negotiating a new national minimum wage ahead of 2027.
The council put the current pump price at between N1,450 and N2,000 a litre, and as high as N2,500 in some areas outside the major cities, describing that level as “unacceptable to Nigerian workers”. Market data from late September broadly support the upper end of the range in parts of the country. The Dangote Refinery raised its gantry price to N1,350 a litre from 12 September, and pump prices at NNPC and independent stations moved to roughly N1,380 in Lagos, N1,430 in Abuja and as high as N1,456 in Yobe, based on figures published by the marketers and the News Agency of Nigeria.
The unions listed in the council include the Nigerian Civil Service Union, the Medical and Health Workers Union, the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria and the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives. Also named are the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Employees, and three other public service and printing sector unions. The council said it had already mobilised members across the country in readiness for the action.
The demands build on an earlier letter the council sent to the President on 21 September, which set out the same three issues and called for negotiations on a minimum wage of not less than N500,000 from 2027. That figure would be more than seven times the current N70,000 minimum wage, which took effect in 2024 and which labour leaders say has already been eroded by inflation.
The Nigeria Labour Congress has backed the public servants. Its assistant general secretary, Chris Onyeka, told Vanguard that the affiliated unions had the congress’s full support, and said the government’s failure to roll out measures against the rising cost of fuel was “disappointing and shocking”. He warned that if the demands were not met quickly, the action could “snowball into a national strike involving all workers”.
The affordability argument turns on the gap between wages and pump prices. At a pump price of about N1,400 a litre, a 40 litre fill costs around N56,000, which is roughly 80 per cent of the N70,000 monthly minimum wage before any spending on food, rent or transport. The pressure on households is visible in the official price series as well. The National Bureau of Statistics, in its most recently published petrol price watch for May 2026, put the national average at N1,596.25 a litre, up 55.31 per cent from a year earlier.
The strike notice lands at a delicate moment for the government’s own relief plans. After meeting the Nigeria Governors’ Forum on 27 August, Tinubu said governors had agreed to work towards lower intra state transport fares from 1 October, using the cost advantage of compressed natural gas and electric vehicles. The 1 October target and the strike deadline now fall days apart, which sharpens the question of what the President’s Independence Day address will offer.
The government had not formally responded to the council’s letter as of Tuesday. When Vanguard sought comment, officials of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity could not be reached, though a source in the ministry said the “appropriate authorities” were handling the matter. That claim could not be independently confirmed.
What happens next depends on the content of the President’s broadcast and on whether the government moves on any of the three demands before the deadline lapses. The council has framed the planned action as a warning strike rather than an indefinite one, which leaves room for negotiation if talks open. Until then, the threat of disruption from 2 October remains on the table.