President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has announced a provisional wage increment for civil servants as Nigeria marks its 63rd Independence Anniversary.

Tinubu announced in his nationwide broadcast delivered on Sunday morning, October 1, that for the next six months, the average low-grade worker would receive an additional N25,000 per month.

The Nigerian leader said his administration is introducing a provisional wage increment to enhance the federal minimum wage without causing undue inflation.

Tinubu expressed dismay with the saying of some citizens that “an independent Nigeria should never have come into existence.

“Some have said that our country would be torn apart. They are forever mistaken. Here, our nation stands, and here we shall remain.”

Tinubu, however, said that a significant milestone in the journey to a better Nigeria had been passed this year after Nigerians democratically elected a 7th consecutive civilian government.

“Nigeria has proven that commitment to democracy and the rule of law remains our guiding light.

“At my inauguration, I made important promises about how I would govern this great nation. Among those promises were pledges to reshape and modernize our economy and to secure the lives, liberty and property of the people.

“I said that bold reforms were necessary to place our nation on the path of prosperity and growth. On that occasion, I announced the end of the fuel subsidy. I am attuned to the hardships that have come. I have a heart that feels and eyes that see. I wish to explain to you why we must endure this trying moment.

“Those who sought to perpetuate the fuel subsidy and broken foreign exchange policies are people who would build their family mansion in the middle of a swamp.

“I am different. I am not a man to erect our national home on a foundation of mud. To endure, our home must be constructed on safe and pleasant ground,” Tinubu boasted.

According to him, reform may be painful, but it is what greatness and the future require.

“We now carry the costs of reaching a future in Nigeria where the abundance and fruits of the nation are fairly shared among all, not hoarded by a select and greedy few. A Nigeria where hunger, poverty and hardship are pushed into the shadows of an ever-fading past.

“There is no joy in seeing the people of this nation shoulder burdens that should have been shed years ago. I wish today’s difficulties did not exist. But we must endure if we are to reach the good side of our future,” the Nigerian leader said, assuring that his administration is doing all that it can to ease the load on the citizens.