The National President of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Alhaji Haruna Kankara, on Sunday, revealed that about 20 states are yet to implement the N70,000 new minimum wage for local government workers and primary school teachers.
Speaking to The PUNCH, Kankara listed the affected states to include Yobe, Gombe, Zamfara, Kaduna, Imo, Ebonyi, Cross River, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Borno, Sokoto, and several others.
The disclosure comes months after President Bola Tinubu signed the Minimum Wage Act, 2024 into law on July 29, 2024. The new law increased the national minimum wage from N30,000 to N70,000, representing a 133 percent increment, in response to the country’s economic challenges.
Following the passage of the law, approximately 20 states began implementing the new wage structure. These include Lagos, Rivers, Bayelsa, Niger, Enugu, Akwa Ibom, Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Jigawa, Gombe, Ogun, Kebbi, Ondo, and Kogi, among others.
Kankara, however, noted that while some states have commenced payment to state government employees, they have excluded local government workers and primary school teachers.
“We truly have the challenge of so many states, like about 20 that have not started implementing the new minimum wage,” he said.
“Some have started paying the state workers, leaving out the local government workers and primary school teachers, but we have continued to engage and plead with them to do the needful for these workers. Some of them promised but failed to fulfil their promise, but we are hoping that just very soon all of these would have been resolved,” Kankara added.
