Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State has revealed that no worker in the state currently earns less than N70,000, in alignment with the recently approved national minimum wage.
Speaking at the Workers’ Day event held at Murtala Square, Kaduna, on Thursday, the governor said the lowest-paid employee in the state receives N72,000.
He emphasized his administration’s commitment to the welfare of workers and pledged to soon address salary adjustments for all categories of staff.
“I have been involved in the struggle for labour rights, workers’ rights. That is my antecedent. Because of my background, I sat down with the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC),”; Sani stated.
“I made it clear to them that though we have met the minimum wage requirement but there is something called incremental adjustment which is discretionary.
“Because of my relationship with both NLC and TUC, I asked them that we should sit down and come up with a formular that will make every worker in Kaduna state happy, irrespective of his or her status and they came up with three different options.
“Today, I want to reaffirm to all of you here that by the grace of God, we will look at the incremental adjustment and ensure that even senior civil servants will benefit because we have to make our workers happy.’’
Governor Sani also reiterated that improving the welfare of retirees remains a core priority for his administration.
He revealed that the Kaduna government disbursed N3.8 billion in April to clear unpaid gratuities, death benefits, and accrued entitlements under the contributory pension scheme.
“Since the inception of our administration, we have cumulatively paid the sum of N10.4 billion in gratuity, death benefits, and accrued rights in the Contributory Pension Scheme,”; he noted.
Sani described the payments as “unprecedented,”; saying it underscores his administration’s resolve to ease the burden on pensioners.
Addressing the ongoing strike by lecturers at Kaduna State University (KASU), the governor explained that significant investments had been made to revamp the institution.
He said that when he assumed office, over 60% of the university’s programmes lacked accreditation. To address this, his government committed over N300 million to secure full accreditation from the National Universities Commission (NUC).
However, Sani said the lecturers’ demands accumulated over a 17-year period and estimated at N5 billion to N6 billion—could not be met immediately.
“In spite of this, the lecturers want us to settle these liabilities now, and I said no. I said that we have to sit down and have a dialogue. I then asked them, where were their voices in the last 17 years?”; he asked.
He assured workers that the lingering issues would be resolved through dialogue, reiterating his belief that “education is the greatest leveller.”;
