As workers in Nigeria mark another May Day, labour unions have lamented an increased level of hardship in the eight years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

Development Diaries reports that the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) also knocked governors for ‘ignoring’ the welfare of workers in their states.

Speaking at the 2023 Workers’ Day celebrations held in Abuja, the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, asked for a fresh retirement age for civil servants in the country.

Ajaero also called for a general review of core civil servants’ salaries to narrow the gap between other civil servants’ emoluments and those in other segments of the public service.

He said that the extension of years of service should go around, as it had been done in other sectors of the public service in the country.

‘We are, therefore, demanding that the age of retirement and length of service in the entire public service, including the civil service, be reviewed upward to 65 years of age and 40 years of service’, he said.

‘It is necessary to recall that we have continued over the years to demand that the salaries of core civil servants be beefed up to narrow the gap between their emoluments and those in other segments of the public service.

‘They all possess the same educational qualifications and cognate experience on the job. So why the disparity’?

The labour unions are generally concerned about the plight of civil servants, but there are huge labour concerns in the private sector, too.

Plight of workers in Nigeria

Majority of the complaints from civil servants border on issues of welfare, promotions, payment of allowances, and minimum wage increase.

It is no longer news that both private and public employers in Nigeria violate labour laws unprovoked.

The federal and state governments, on their part, are doing little or nothing to motivate the workers. The N30,000 minimum wage can barely feed a man and his family, let alone pay house rent, medical bills, transportation and school fees.

With the continuous hostile economic environment in the country, workers’ ‘take home pay’ cannot really take them home.

The Nigerian workers are worst hit by the rising inflation, the poor value of the naira, the failure of the health and education sectors as well as insecurity.

The day should be one where the government looks back and admits that it has failed in terms of upholding workers’ welfare.

Buhari’s labour scorecard

Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, upon assumption of office in August 2019, promised to resolve the crisis surrounding university workers’ strike and other issues affecting the industrial sector.

In 2020, the Minister of State for Labour, Festus Keyamo, revealed the details of government’s plan to employ at least 1,000 persons from each of the 774 local government areas in the country.

Unfortunately, the ministry has failed to stop labour unions from embarking on incessant strikes as health workers and academic unions continue to decry deplorable working conditions in the country.

In a 2023 report, KPMG, a global audit and tax advisory firm, projected that Nigeria’s unemployment rate is expected to rise from 37 percent to 40.6 percent.

The Buhari administration increased the minimum wage to N30,000 from N18,000, but food inflation, which skyrocketed to 22.72 percent, has eroded the increase.

According to the World Bank, Nigeria has one of the highest inflation rates globally and the seventh highest in sub-Saharan Africa in 2022.

The President-Elect, Bola Tinubu, promised during his campaign for votes to give more than a minimum wage to Nigerian workers, promising to give them a ‘living wage’.

Development Diaries urges the incoming federal and state governments to fulfil their promises to workers. An increased minimum wage for all categories of workers should be on their agenda while they consider the demands of the labour unions.

We also urge the incoming federal and state governments to come up with policies that will create an enabling environment for workers in the informal sector and the private sector to thrive; attention should not only be given to civil servants.

Nigeria must ensure it abides by its international labour commitment to protect workers’ rights.

Photo source: NLC