NULGE urges Yobe to pay council workers N70,000 minimum wage  

Pensioners demand N32,000 pay increase

Yobe State chapter of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has urged Governor Mai Mala Buni to pay the N70,000 minimum wage to council workers.

According to the union, out of the 17 local councils in the state, seven or 41 per cent could not implement the minimum wage pegged by President Bola Tinubu.

Lamenting the inability of the councils to implement a working wage, yesterday, in Damaturu, the NULGE Chairman, Baba Shehu Mustapha, stated: “We’re urging the state government to speed up the implementation process of the N70,000 minimum wage to our members.”

He noted that only 10 local councils could effectively pay the new wage to workers.   Mustapha attributed the non-implementation to the inadequate capacity of councils to raise more internally generated revenues (IGR).  He explained: “This is what informed the union to set up a high-powered committee to explore means of generating more revenues to implement the new minimum wage to the council workers,”  adding that NULGE was engaging with the state government and stakeholders.

SIMILARLY, some pensioners have appealed to the Federal Government to pay the N32,000 pension increment, according to the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act, 2024.

The senior citizens, who said they needed their entitlements to take care of their feeding, medicals and other bills, complained that they face hard times, urging the government to increase their monthly pension in line with the current economic realities.

Spokesperson for the Nigeria Union of Pensioners Contributory Pension Scheme Sector (NUPCPS), Ethelbert Ibeh, urged the government to offset outstanding arrears of increment, adding that the pensioners had not received any increment, whereas minimum wage had been increased several times.

Ibeh said the Act provides that anytime there was an increment in the minimum wage, a certain percentage would be added to the pension. His words: “Before, we received a little pension that we could hardly survive on. And now, with the economic hardship, we still receive the same money. This makes it difficult for us to survive.

“Some of us still have children in schools, how do they pay their school fees? Some live in a rented apartment, how do they pay? How do we feed and pay for medical bills?

“Once you get to 60 years, you can no longer access your health insurance, whereas, it is that period you need it most.”