Posted by Chinenye on Fri 09th Oct, 2026 - tori.ng
Thousands of retired workers in Gombe State are set to receive a major financial relief as the government begins a multibillion-naira payment.
(Governor Muhammadu Yahaya. photo Credit: Premuim Times)
The Gombe State Government has started paying N10.32 billion in gratuities to 6,665 retirees from the state and local governments.
Governor Muhammadu Yahaya announced the payment on Thursday.
It is the sixth round of gratuity payments since he came into office in 2019.
Of the total, N6.24 billion is for state government retirees who left work in 2024 and 2025.
The other N4.08 billion will help local governments clear what they owe.
The payment covers 2,354 state retirees and 4,311 local government retirees.
When Yahaya took office, he inherited a gratuity debt of N21 billion.
Local councils had been borrowing about N1.3 billion every month just to pay salaries.
Since 2019, his government has paid out N44.134 billion in total, including Thursday's payment.
He says all state government gratuities up to December 2025 are now cleared.
Gratuities that build up from January 2026 will be paid in early 2027.
He also plans to set up a system to stop these debts from piling up again, possibly through a contributory pension scheme.
Other payments include N299 million to former staff of the Gombe Investment and Property Development Company, which has been dissolved.
The government also approved payment of old gratuity debts owed to former local government chairmen and councillors.
Yahaya said his government has paid the new minimum wage, put CONMESS and CONHESS in place for health workers, paid salaries and pensions on time, and hired 1,000 teachers and over 440 health workers.
Finance Commissioner Muhammadu Magaji said the payment is the government keeping its promise to retirees who served the state.