The Oyo State Government, on Wednesday, approved a minimum wage of N80,000 for the state workforce.
In a statement by the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Dotun Oyelade, in Ibadan, the state capital, the technical committee set up by the government recommended and got approval from Governor Seyi Makinde for the implementation of the new salary scale.
He said, “This new scale will be implemented as soon as the consequential adjustments process is completed by the committee which comprises of government and labour top officials.”
Oyelade recalled that only last month, a Federal Government agency, the National Bureau of Statistics, in its latest employment statistics published for 2024, rated the state as the most worker-friendly state in the whole of Southern Nigeria, owing to a significant decline in the state unemployment rate, following a series of high-pitched employment of workers into various sectors of the state.
“The Oyo State pays its workers salaries on the 25th of every month since Governor Makinde came into office in 2019.
“The governor started paying the previous N30,000 minimum wage from inception over four years ago, including consistent payment of pensions, gratuities and 13th-month salary for both workers and pensioners alike.
“Since November 2023, Governor Makinde has been paying N25,000 to its workers and N15,000 to its pensioners as a welfare wage award.
“Makinde administration started paying the wage award to cushion the effect of the Federal Government induced fuel subsidy removal and has also been consistent with the payment for over a year, even till date.”
The commissioner reiterated that the governor had paid the backlog of gratuities from 2008 to 2015 for pensioners with an increase in gratuity payment for them at both the Local Government Staff Pensions Board and those paid by the Ministry of Establishment and Training.
He added that the governor also put back into the payroll, pensioners whose names were removed by the immediate-past administration and giving all pensioners annual Christmas/New Year chicken bonus.