The Kano State chapter of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has disputed the state government’s claim of discovering 247 ghost workers within the payroll of local governments.
The state NLC chairman, Kabiru Inuwa, made this assertion during a press briefing following the 2025 International Workers’ Day celebration at Sani Abacha Stadium, Kano.
Inuwa emphasized that the issue stemmed from the government’s failure to process retirement applications from workers. He explained that as long as retirement notices are not processed, those workers remain active employees.
“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,” Inuwa stated.
“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.”
Inuwa continued by explaining that until these workers’ retirements were officially processed, they were still considered part of the workforce.
“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,” he said.
NLC takes action against mismanagement and casual labour
In response to this issue, the NLC has vowed to take action to ensure that retirement desk officers perform their duties efficiently.
“We are taking care of that. The labour is taking the bull by the horn. We will make it mandatory that every retirement desk officer in every local government will be summoned at the Congress,” Inuwa added.
He also voiced concerns about the increasing casualisation of workers, particularly in critical sectors like education and healthcare, stressing that casual workers should not be allowed to handle responsibilities in such areas.
“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,” he said, warning of the dangers of negligence in these fields.
Inuwa called for government action to address the growing issue of casualisation, urging for the conversion of casual workers into full-time positions to improve overall service delivery.
