The Oyo State Government has approved a ₦80,000 minimum wage for its workforce, State Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Dotun Oyelade, announced Wednesday.
“The Technical Committee set up by the State Government recommended and got approval from Governor Seyi Makinde for the implementation of the new salary scale,” Oyelade said in an official statement.
The implementation will commence after the completion of consequential adjustments by a committee comprising government and labour officials.
The wage increase announcement follows recent recognition from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). In its latest employment statistics for 2024, NBS rated Oyo State as the most worker-friendly in Southern Nigeria, citing a significant decline in the state’s unemployment rate due to extensive hiring across various sectors.
Track Record of Consistent Payments
“The Oyo State Government has been paying workers’ salaries on the 25th of every month since Governor Makinde took office in 2019,” Oyelade said. “The governor began paying the previous ₦30,000 minimum wage from the start of his tenure over four years ago, including consistent payments of pensions, gratuities and a 13th-month salary for both workers and pensioners alike.”
Current Welfare Support
Since November 2023, the state has maintained additional support measures. “Governor Makinde has been paying ₦25,000 to workers and ₦15,000 to pensioners as a welfare wage award. The Makinde administration introduced the wage award to cushion the effects of the Federal Government’s fuel subsidy removal and has remained consistent with these payments for over a year, even to this day,” according to Oyelade.
Pension Progress
The commissioner noted that Makinde’s administration has cleared the backlog of gratuities from 2008 to 2015 for pensioners. This includes an increase in gratuity payments for those under both the Local Government Staff Pensions Board and those paid by the Ministry of Establishment and Training.
