Governor Babagana Zulum has directed all 27 local government chairmen in Borno State to urgently devise strategies to implement the new N70,000 minimum wage for local government workers.
The governor gave the charge during a high-level meeting held at the Government House in Maiduguri.
The meeting was attended by leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC), and the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE).
“All local government chairpersons should return to their respective areas and engage relevant stakeholders to work out a practical solution for implementing the new minimum wage,” Gov. Zulum said.
The governor reaffirmed that the N72,000 minimum wage has already been fully implemented for state civil servants and primary school teachers, while calling for patience among local government workers.
“We are not in support of staff retrenchment at the local government level,” he warned.
“Instead, I direct that mechanisms be put in place to ensure implementation of the minimum wage without job losses.”
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Providing insight into the challenges, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry for Local Government and Emirate Affairs, Modu Alhaji Mustapha, cited an over-bloated workforce as a key obstacle to rolling out the new wage across local councils.
He disclosed that the 27 local government areas in the state collectively employ about 90,000 staff, three times the size of the workforce in Kano State, despite Kano having a significantly larger population and 44 local government areas.
“Our local government areas are overstretched. The staff strength is too high to sustain the new wage structure,” Mustapha said.
He cited the example of Maiduguri Metropolitan Council (MMC), whose monthly allocation from the federal government is sometimes below N700 million, yet it requires at least N778 million monthly to pay the minimum wage alone, excluding other essential services like healthcare, security, and water supply.
Meanwhile, the Borno State chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has praised Gov. Zulum for successfully implementing the N72,000 minimum wage for primary school teachers.
The state NLC Chairman, Comrade Yusuf Inuwa, said the development has earned the state commendations at the national level.
“Your Excellency, during one of our national meetings, when I mentioned that primary school teachers in Borno are receiving N72,000, the hall erupted in applause,” Inuwa said.
The NLC called for similar urgency in resolving the wage issue at the local government level to ensure equitable treatment of all workers across the state.