Labour unions have shut down the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation and other public sector offices in the Federal Capital Territory to enforce the nationwide strike.
One of the leaders of the enforcement team, who is also the Joint Union President of the Head of Service Unit of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, Ahmed Sylvester Abba, said the level of compliance with the strike was encouraging.
Also, the federal secretariat, Ministry of Finance where shut down, while banks around the Central Business District were not operating as the labour team blocked entrances to their offices.
The industrial action comes after a series of failed negotiations involving both organised labour and federal government representatives at the tripartite committee meetings on the new minimum wage.
Negotiations, however, broke down on Friday last week after the government earlier in the week offered a marginal increase of 3,000naira to the N 57,000 offer it had earlier proposed to arrive at a N60,000 minimum wage proposal, a figure which the labour leaders kicked against.
The labour unions intend to pressurize the government into offering a higher minimum wage, as both congresses are also insisting on N494,000 as minimum wage, which they consider adequate to reflect the current rising cost of living.
