KEY POINTS

• Didi Walson-Jack’s office denied approving a 40 percent peculiar allowance for federal civil servants or communicating it to labor unions.
• The National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission holds statutory responsibility and issued the relevant circular on April 23, 2026.
• The federal government’s wider welfare package includes a N10 billion housing loan scheme and reviews of duty tour, estacode and book allowances.

Didi Walson-Jack’s Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation on Wednesday denied approving a 40 percent peculiar allowance for federal civil servants, distancing itself from reports that suggested the welfare measure had cleared official channels.

The clarification, in a statement Director of Press and Public Relations Eno Olotu signed, said the OHCSF neither approved nor formally communicated such an allowance to labor unions, with the statutory responsibility for salary and allowance circulars resting with the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission.

Now the rebuttal lands as federal civil servants and union leaders parse the government’s wider welfare package, with rumors of an outsized peculiar allowance moving faster than the official paper trail.

NSIWC, not OHCSF, holds the pen

Specifically, the OHCSF said the NSIWC released the circular in question on April 23, 2026, and that any formal communication on salaries and allowances must originate from that commission. The office added that it neither transmitted the allowance to the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council nor to any other labor organization.

Indeed, the May 12 meeting Walson-Jack convened served as an interventionist and conciliatory engagement aimed at promoting dialogue between organized labor and the NSIWC, not as an approval forum for the allowance, the office said.

Moreover, the distinction matters because civil servants reading press reports of a 40 percent peculiar allowance hike had begun pressing for clarification on entitlements, timelines and back-payment computations.

The wider welfare package

Furthermore, the OHCSF reminded stakeholders that a separate April 24 press briefing had unveiled a broader welfare package for civil servants. That package includes adjustments to duty tour allowances, an upward review of the peculiar allowance across salary structures, increases in estacode and book allowance and other entitlements.

Additionally, the federal government announced a N10 billion housing loan scheme for public servants as part of the package, an item that has drawn significant interest among workers facing rising rental costs across federal duty stations.

Today, the OHCSF positioned the measures as steps to improve conditions of service across the civil service and strengthen industrial harmony, framing the welfare bundle as a complement to the ongoing minimum wage rollout.

Labor unions watching about peculiar allowance clarification

Meanwhile, organized labor will likely press the government for fresh detail on how the peculiar allowance review will land, how it sequences against the new minimum wage and which salary structures get the steepest adjustments.

However, the absence of a single, definitive circular has fueled the confusion the OHCSF is now trying to dispel. The office’s invocation of the NSIWC’s statutory primacy effectively passes the next communication moment to the commission rather than to the head of service.

Together with the May 12 conciliatory meeting and the April 24 welfare announcement, the latest clarification frames the federal welfare conversation as a multi-stop process rather than a single windfall moment.

Whether civil servants emerge with the 40 percent peculiar allowance circulating in news reports or with a more modest figure tied to specific salary bands will depend on the next NSIWC circular. Yet for now, Walson-Jack’s office wants the record to show one clear thing: her office has not formally approved anything yet.