Abstract
The National Assembly in 2019 enacted the National Minimum Wage Act 2019 which was also signed into Law by President Mohammed Buhari. The essence of the Act was to increase the minimum wage in the country from 18,000.00 to 30,000.00. It is on record that, before the implementation of the 30,000.00
Minimum Wage as provided in the Act there were a lot of argument and queries, especially by the State Governments as to the Constitutionality of Minimum Wage for the entire country against the backdrop of the fact that Nigeria operates a federal system of Government. The main grouse of the State
Governments is that it is not just an affront on a federal system but a contradiction and an aberration for the federal government in a federation to fix salaries of workers for the federating states or better put to legislate on the issue of wages and fix a minimum wage for the Federal Government workers and the workers of the federating units. It was argued that States should be allowed to fix, Minimum Wage for their various States according to their economic capacities to pay. This paper examined the Legality of those arguments within the confines of our constitution and Nigeria as a federal system. The paper also
examined the concept of minimum wage and living wage to ascertain whether they connote one and the same thing. The paper concluded that there is nothing unusual and illegal for the federal legislature to legislate on wages for both the workers of the federal government and the workers of the federating units so far as it is mandated by the constitution so to do.
Keywords: Minimum Wage, Living Wage, Federation, Federating Units, Legislature, Constitution.
