THE remaining states yet to implement the N70,000 minimum wage for workers are making last-minute moves to ensure the Nigeria Labour Congress does not embark on strike on Monday, December 1, this newspaper gathered.
The states yet to approve the monthly wage are Katsina, Cross River and Zamfara, after the Imo State Government sanctioned the implementation of the N70,000 wage on Tuesday.
It means 33 states and the Federal Capital Territory have now complied with the 2024 National Minimum Wage Act.
Many states agreed to pay above the N70,000 starting point with Lagos and Rivers offering the highest pay with N85,000.
Lagos also announced that its workers could smile to the bank with up to N100,000 monthly from the first quarter of 2025.
Workers in Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Oyo and Niger will earn N80,000 while Delta and Ogun states approved N77,000.
Ebonyi, Osun, Benue and Kebbi states approved N75,000; Ondo, N73,000; Kogi and Kaduna, N72,000; Kano and Gombe, N71,000.
Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Jigawa, Borno, Edo, Kwara, Nasarawa, Taraba, Ekiti, Bauchi, Yobe, Imo and Plateau states, as well as the Federal Capital Territory, all settled for N70,000.
But despite the NLC’s warnings, trio Katsina, Zamfara and Cross River have yet to implement the new wage, which could lead to a shutdown of activities in the affected states from Monday.
On Monday, labour unions in Cross River, who are demanding a new wage of N70,000 from the state government, directed state civil servants to embark on a two-day warning strike over the non-implementation of the new minimum wage.
The warning strike was signed by the Nigerian Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress.
This followed a staged walkout from a scheduled meeting held on November 18 with state government officials, who formed members of the wage implementation committee at the office of the state’s Head of Service, Innocent Eteng, in Calabar, the state capital.
According to the labour leaders, last week, when the committee sat for the first time, the meeting ended in a stalemate when they perceived delayed tactics by the government to postpone the meeting to January.
The state’s civil servants said they were utterly disappointed when Governor Bassey Otu announced a new minimum wage of N40,000 on May 1, during the International Workers Day celebration at the U.J Essueine Stadium in Calabar.
Otu said that due to the state’s lean resources, caused by the statutory federal allocation aggravated by the unfavourable state Gross Domestic Product, the new minimum wage of N40,000 would be in line with realities rather than sentiments.
While giving instances of Edo, Lagos, Rivers and other governors, the workers said they were of high hope before the unexpected announcement of N40,000.
The strike action, which was signed by the Nigerian Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress, was set to commence from November 24 midnight to 26, 2024.
Multiple sources in the NLC secretariat in Katsina, the state capital, told our correspondent on Thursday that the state was yet to approve the payment.
Last month, this newspaper reported that the Katsina State Government inaugurated a 15-member committee to guide the implementation of a new minimum wage of N70,000.
Deputy Governor Faruk Lawal, while inaugurating the committee, said the government was aware of the hardship being faced by civil servants in the state.
“You are all aware that His Excellency, the Governor, Mallam Dikko Umar Radda, has set up a committee to implement the N70,000 minimum wage consequential adjustment to all categories of workers in the state.
“This includes the state civil servants, the Local Government employees and other categories of workers. The government is aware of the hardship being encountered by the civil servants,” he stated.