The Kano State chapter of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has faulted the state government over its claim on discovery of 247 ghost workers on the payroll of local governments.
The state NLC chairman, Kabiri Inuwa, stated this while answering questions from newsmen shortly after the 2025 International Workers’ Day celebration held at the Sani Abacha Stadium, on Thursday,
According to The PUNCH, he said the state government should be blamed for refusing to process the retirement notice sent by the retiring workers, adding that as long as their retirement letters are not processed, they are still workers.
“It is in the local government that you will retire, send your own application for retirement. After the date that you are leaving the service, it will not be processed.
“Stoppage of salary is a product of processing retirement procedures. Nobody can stop your salary without having the necessary documents that you are exiting the service in so-so months. Those are the category of workers that are referred to as ghost-workers.
“Your retirement was not processed and sent. Salary is coming. Will you hold your hand and say let me take it back? No, because you are still a worker,” Inuwa said.
He added that the union was making an effort to ensure that the retirement desk officers discharged their duties as required.
“We are taking care of that. The labour is taking the bull by the horn. We will make it mandatory every retirement desk officer in every local government will be summoned at the Congress.
“If we continue to have this kind of issue, they have to sign on the ticket between them and the government that this will not happen. Because they are blackmailing us,” he said.
The NLC chairman further stated that “it was embarrassing when every newspaper in Nigeria carried the story ‘Fraud in Kano salary’.
“It’s on us, the labour. Because it is the workers that do the salary. It is the workers that prepare the salary. It is the workers that stop salaries. Then we are at a loss.”
He also expressed concern over the casualisation of labour in schools and hospitals, describing it as a dangerous trend.
“Hospitals and schools are places that you don’t have to take a casual worker because schools are providing the future leaders while hospitals are dealing with lives.
“You have to give them your best. You have to give them all you could to make sure that those places are adequately staffed; and equipped. You cannot bring a casual worker and entrust the lives of people in his hands,” he said.
He noted that casual workers have the tendency of negligence, adding “that is our fear. That is why we are considering it as a challenge, not to us alone as laborers, but to society in general.”
He, therefore, called on the government to look into the issue with a view to converting those casual workers to full workers.
