“Bread worth N50 in Nigeria is worth a wheelbarrow-full of Zimbabwean dollars.” “Go to Ghana with your Naira and you are a rich man.” These were the sentiments some Nigerians shared years ago when these countries suffered from inflation caused by bad government policies. Now, Nigeria is about to join this elite group it once mocked, owing to bad decisions made by past and present leaders as well as an over-reliance on oil.
With the negative GDP growth rate recorded for Nigeria in the first quarter of this year, the nation is one step away from a recession. But, with their somewhat humongous wages, most Nigerian leaders may not feel the effect of the accompanying inflation. However, like the popular Fela song, the everyday Nigerian is “shuffering and shmiling”they are “suffering and angry.” It is probably the wrong time to be Nigerian and to live in Nigeria — and no one will feel the brunt of this recession more than government workers.
Unfortunately, most of Nigeria’s public “servants,” aptly named, had already been on the receiving end of it’s harsh economy, even before the incoming threat of a recession and inflation. According a source who works in one of Nigeria’s public ministry headquarters in Abuja, “if you don’t want to suffer, don’t apply to work in the ministry,” he said. “If you are a qualified University graduate, just hope for around N30,000 per month as your wages for working in the ministry.” The picture at the State level is also bleak; new government employees receive as low as N13,000 despite the minimum wage limit of N18,700. That amount will not get a you decent accommodation in Nigeria, let alone tend to your basic needs (buying petrol to power your generator, paying inflated electric bills, inflated transport fares etc.) Worse still, moving up the ladder takes years to accomplish, i.e. if you don’t count your boss’ relative coming in to take your position.
On the other hand, this is hardly the case for workers in Federal Agencies and Parastatals whose wages start from as high as N80,000 . “We get paid a lot higher than our counterparts working in the ministries. We all know. But there is nothing I can do. You have to be lucky or know someone in Nigeria,” said a woman who works at an agency in Nigeria’s aviation sector. These Agencies and Parastatals have their roles tied to various Federal Ministries and are not self-sufficient. Income inequality has never been so glaring as it is now in Nigeria. At the other end of the wage scale are the government ministers and senators who receive millions of Naira every month, excluding the various “sitting” and “standing” allowances they also receive. Perhaps the readiness of the nation’s Federal Government to increase pump price by almost 100 percent, so as “to remove subsidy and save government money,” with an absence of adequate infrastructure to counter the effect, suggests that the Nigerian government really doesn’t care about its people.
The rhetoric of “making sacrifices” is convenient, especially when most of the decision makers will not be affected by their decisions. The recent mini-strike by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) to get the government to reverse its pump price decision reveals the dying embers of this once revered Labour Union. It really looked like they were fighting for their stomachs and not for government workers, considering the fact that their wages will be threatened by the increase in petroleum pump price. Many state governments have been unable to pay their workers salary for months or even years now but the NLC has been silent. Perhaps, they should turn their efforts to that; negotiate for higher salaries for workers, then request for a cutback on the wage structures of Nigerian bigwigs, after-all everyone has to make sacrifices, that way Nigerians will take them seriously.
