Months after President Bola Tinubu signed the new minimum wage law, nine states in Nigeria have yet to implement the approved N70,000 minimum wage for teachers, according to data obtained from the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) on Sunday.
President Tinubu had signed the minimum wage bill into law on 29 July 2024, following its passage by the National Assembly on 23 July 2024. Despite this, teachers in several states remain on outdated salary structures.
Earlier, in October 2024, The PUNCH reported that 12 states were still paying teachers—particularly those employed by local governments—the old N18,000 minimum wage, meaning they had not even benefitted from the N30,000 approved under former President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to the latest NUT data, as of July 2025, the following nine states have yet to commence payment of the N70,000 minimum wage to teachers:
Abia State: No implementation yet.
Adamawa State: Teachers have moved from N18,000 to N30,000, but the N70,000 rate remains unpaid.
Ebonyi State: Minimum wage for teachers has not been implemented.
Enugu State: The government introduced a N50,000 wage enhancement across sectors but has not formally implemented the N70,000 minimum wage for teachers.
Gombe State: Minimum wage yet to be implemented for primary school teachers.
Kaduna State: Authorities cite an ongoing teachers’ verification exercise as the reason for non-implementation.
Nasarawa State: No implementation yet.
Yobe State: No implementation yet.
Zamfara State: No implementation yet.
In the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), teachers recently ended a strike that lasted over 100 days, after area council chairmen agreed to cut internally generated revenue allocations to meet the salary demands.
The NUT has urged all non-compliant states to begin paying the N70,000 minimum wage for teachers immediately. The union also called on states already paying the new wage to ensure it is extended to all categories of teachers across both state and local government levels.
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