By Dipo Olowookere
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State has approved the payment of N85,000 as the minimum wage of the state’s civil servants.
He announced the upward review of the salary of the employees of the Lagos State Civil Service in an interview on Channels Television on Wednesday night.
Speaking with the anchor of the broadcast station’s prime time programme, Politics Today, Mr Seun Okinbaloye, the Governor said the least worker on the payroll of the state government would be paid N85,000 per month and no longer N70,000.
“You mentioned minimum wage and what I need to throw in for my people. I’m glad to let you know that the minimum wage for Lagos, which we’ve discussed with our union, is N85,000 today,” Mr Sanwo-Olu declared.
He used the programme to state that his administration was working hard to ensure residents of Lagos lived well, assuring them that he was doing everything possible to alleviate their sufferings.
Governor Sanwo-Olu said the state government decided to pay higher than the national minimum wage of N70,000 because the state was buoyant to pay the new salary.
He said, “It’s not a competition; I’m not going to say that we are paying more than some other people; it’s a function of affordability and a function of capacity.”
Business Post reports that before the federal government agreed to a new minimum wage of N70,000 with the organised labour comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in August 2024, Lagos and Edo States had already been paying N70,000.