The Oyo State Government has approved a minimum wage of ₦80,000 for the State workforce.
Announcing this in a statement on Wednesday, the State Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Dotun Oyelade, said the Technical Committee set up by the State Government recommended the increase, and Governor Seyi Makinde approved its implementation.
He added that the new wage scale would take effect once the consequential adjustments are completed by a committee comprising senior government and labour officials.
Oyelade noted that, only last month, the National Bureau of Statistics rated Oyo State as the most worker-friendly state in Southern Nigeria in its 2024 employment report, following a significant decrease in unemployment due to the high rate of job creation across various sectors.
“The Oyo State Government has been paying workers’ salaries on the 25th of each month since Governor Makinde took office in 2019.
“The governor began implementing the previous ₦30,000 minimum wage from the start of his tenure over four years ago, consistently paying pensions, gratuities, and a 13th-month salary for both workers and pensioners.
“Since November 2023, Governor Makinde has also provided a welfare wage award of ₦25,000 for workers and ₦15,000 for pensioners. This initiative was introduced to help offset the impact of the Federal Government’s fuel subsidy removal and has been sustained for over a year,” Oyelade explained.
The commissioner highlighted that Makinde has cleared the backlog of gratuities for pensioners from 2008 to 2015 and has increased gratuity payments for those under both the Local Government Staff Pensions Board and those overseen by the Ministry of Establishment and Training.
He added that the governor has reinstated pensioners whose names were removed by the previous administration and continues to provide all pensioners with a Christmas/New Year bonus of a chicken each year.