 Federal government okays pay rise for civil servants as they await Buhari's approval. Even as the Minister of Labour and Employment, Kristin Gige, says the incoming administration of the president-elect, Bola Tinabu, should start discussions on a review of the minimum wage currently obtainable in Nigeria immediately after its inauguration in May. This is Plus Politics. My name is Nyamy Ghul Agaji. The Minister of Labour and Employment, Kristin Gige, has revealed that the federal government has approved the pay raise for civil servants in the country. The minister said the salary increment became important in view of the current economic realities of the country. However, adding that the president, Muhammad Abu Hari, is yet to approve the percentage used for the increment. This is, as he noted, that the pay rise was already included in the 2023 budget and would take effect from January 1, 2023. Well, joining us live to discuss this is Nick Agule, a political analyst. Nick, good to have you join us on the show again today. Thank you very much for welcoming me. Good evening, viewers. I'm happy to be here. Okay. We don't seem to understand. Yes, we are happy that the pronouncement has been made. Even though it is just made and there is still a possibility that it will not come to pass. But I'm wondering, does the civil service not have rules that say you serve a particular time you are due for promotion? You serve for a particular time your salaries are due to be increased or something, maybe a particular number of years and the increment of salary and all that? Because we keep seeing these things in Nigeria, we hear that in the constitution or in some of our laws, it tells us that, okay, we need to be changing the Naira, for instance, the redesigning of the Naira after a particular number of years. We don't get to see that. And whenever we do it like we've done it like this, there's a problem. We know that a census is supposed to be taken every 10 years. We don't do it in Nigeria. We just do it at the time that we feel it is convenient. I think because I've not seen a real census for a very, very long time. Now we're talking about civil service salaries and it has to be announced first. And after the announcement, we are told that they still have not even decided on the percentage that they are going to use to do the increment. Is it that we do not have those covered by some rules, by some laws, and we just use our discretion to do this? Or why is it happening the way it is happening, Nick? Thank you very much for that question. The question raises a couple of issues which I will proceed to tackle. The first one is that an employee, when he gets a promotion, is expected to also have a salary raise to the new level where he is operating. And that only comes when the employee gets a promotion. In the civil service, for instance, I believe it takes about four years on one rank before you move promotion to the next rank, or you move on promotion to the next rank. So what then happens in between? What happens in between is that when you are on a salary, which is a static pay, and the inflation rate is rising, if your salary is not increased by the employer, at least by the inflation rate, then it means that you are actually taking a salary cut. How do I mean? Assume you are earning 100,000 Naira. And a bag of rice is 20,000 Naira. Your salary will buy you five bags of rice. Assuming, let's just use it for an example, that you are using all your salary to buy rice. You will buy five bags of rice, if due to inflationary pressure, the bag of rice increases from 20,000 to 30,000. Even though your salary pays sleep, we still read 100,000 Naira. When you go to the market, you will only be able to buy three bags of rice plus, not the five you used to buy. So your salary now can only fetch you three bags of rice, not five. Therefore, you are effectively taking a salary cut, even though you are still on 100,000 Naira. So for the employer to keep you in the same position that you were before inflation kicked in, they will need to increase your salary to 150,000. If they increase your salary by 150,000 and you go to the market, you will still buy five bags of rice at 30,000 Naira. So this is why salary increase during inflationary periods is very necessary. Because if you don't do it, you are actually sending the employees into poverty. And in Nigeria, as we speak now, we look at the headline inflation rate. It was single digit, gone to double digit, is now over 20%. So it means that whatever you are paying workers in Nigeria, 20% of it is already gone for inflation. So the workers in Nigeria are effectively on 80% of the salaries you see on their payslips. And this inflationary pressures have come from various ways. We used to buy diesel at 200, 250. Diesel is now 800, 900. It is the diesel that people who manufacture bread who produce all the other things that we use that are using. And they have passed the cost of that new increase into the cost of products that they are selling to workers. We now know that electricity tariff has gone off. We know that petrol has gone off, meaning transport fare for workers have gone off. So all these things, even the exchange rate, which is used in importing goods for workers to buy, has gone off. So all these things have put so much pressure on employees that a salary increase is important. That is the first issue. The second issue, however, is that the way the federal government is caring about it. Now, the minister of labor says they have made a proposal to Mr. President to approve this salary increase. They have not approved it, but they have gone to announce it and traders in the market would have already started knocking in this salary increase into the prices of the goods that they are selling to workers. And the workers are yet to even see this salary. We don't even know if Mr. President will approve of it. So I know as a politician, the minister of labor is in a hurry to announce a government policy that he believes is a good one, that we want the hearts of people. But that process is not right. They would have waited for at least the president to approve it so that workers can start seeing the increase in salary in their paychecks before they would have started to talk about the fact that they have increased the worker salary. The third issue I want to raise is the timing. The timing of this salary increase proposal. Is it that the government that has watched for eight years workers suffering from increases in prices of goods and services because this inflation has been double digit for the entire eight years that this government has been in power. And they never bothered about increasing staff salaries. It's now that they are about to leave office when they were supposed to be writing their handover notes that they are now increasing salary to put an additional wage bill on the incoming government. So I don't even think that what they are doing is in good faith at all. So these are my views on this announcement that has come from the minister of labor. Okay, yes. I was going to that same point that you just raised here because whether it is approved or not, this administration will not be the ones to implement this. And so there is pressure on the next administration. But it gives us the impression that there's a possibility it may not even work. How will that translate to how the people of Nigeria will fare in the next few years? Granted, like you said, the traders have already factored in these salary increment that we have not seen, that the workers have not seen, the citizens have not seen, but they are there. We're not even talking about the traders only. What about the landlords? Who just get wind of salary increase and then they up their rents? To speak to you, there are some places that rents have gone up 300% overnight. So what can we do? What should the government do now? Because right now I feel there need to be some kind of damage control because that is what it is doing to our society right now. What can be done to control this trend that is likely to follow this announcement that may not even see the light of day? Thank you. Thank you very much. Because your question is on the measures that we are going to put in place. And when you say what can we do to control, there is a point that we need to raise before I will not answer your question. And that point is we have what we call galloping inflation. Galloping inflation is that this inflation is like a horse that is running away from you. As you are trying to meet up with the horse, it is running away from you. How do I mean? Government is increasing salary because inflation is happening. When you increase the salary that means more money is not chasing either the same quantity of goods or less goods in the market. That automatically will send the prices of the goods higher. The government will increase salary again and the prices of goods will also go higher. So as you increase the salary, the prices get up, you increase the salary. That is what we mean by galloping inflation. You will never meet it up. So what should we do? What Nigerian government should do is what we have been preaching for all this while. Nigerian government should increase, should create the enabling environment for increase in production. We have to increase production of goods and services. What I mean here is that let us take that in the market on a hypothetical basis for ease of analysis. In the market there are 100 bags of rice and people have 100,000 Naira to buy. That means each bag of rice will cost 10,000 Naira. Now if we increase the quantity of that rice to 200 bags in the market with the same 100,000 that people have they will buy a bag of rice at 5,000 Naira. So the increase in supply has brought down the price. It is a better way to control the inflation instead of salary increase. Now how do we then increase production? There are very basic things that Nigeria must do for us to increase production. And the first one is electricity. Electricity is the fuel that actually supplies life with the economy. As we speak today, Nigeria is generating and supplying about 3,000 megawatts of electricity to an economy of over 200 million people. In contrast, let me say something that will shock Nigerians. I am speaking to you now from London in the United Kingdom. The population of the United Kingdom is about 60 million, which is probably just a quarter of Nigeria's population. The land mass of the United Kingdom is also a quarter of Nigeria's land mass. But the United Kingdom is supplying 730,000 megawatts of electricity every day to this economy. Please compare 730,000 to 3,000. So we'll say a father who has six children is any 730,000 Naira. Then another father with 20 children is any 3,000 Naira. One, two, three thousand. Three thousand. What is that going to do? Nothing. Nigeria's economy will never grow and we keep preaching this thing. It will never grow until you give it fuel. Because electricity is like blood to the human body. Imagine a team of doctors, the best doctors in the world, gathered around the human body. And the human body does not have enough blood. And these doctors want to make this body to thrive. They want this body to do well. Their work will be in vain. If Nigeria increases electricity supply to even 30,000 megawatts, 30,000, I can assure you that production in Nigeria will rise astronomically. And as production rises, the prices of these goods in the market will keep falling. That is number one. Number two, Nigeria has one of the most fertile lands. All of the most fertile lands in the world. Because I used to work in the oil industry. I used to work here in London at the global headquarters of an international oil company. So I traveled to nearly 40 countries where this company operates. And I have seen many nations in the world and there is no nation that is as blessed as Nigeria. We can cultivate our land with mechanization. And we will only have full sufficiency. We will not be exporting food. Nigeria will become one of the world's largest exporters of food. So instead of now looking for dollars to go and import food, we will be making dollars from food. You will see that the bag of rice today that is selling for 30,000, can even sell for 4,000, 5,000 naira. If we have so much of it being produced using the land that we have. And look at the youthful energy that we have that is doing nothing. So I'm just giving you a few examples of how if we increase production then the cost of living in Nigeria will fall. And not only that, the other side of it is that as we increase production, we are creating jobs, employment for the young men and women who are leasing a banner doing nothing. Because labor is a factor of production. And we're not using labor in Nigeria. So many graduates leave class and maybe a class of 100 will graduate. Maybe about 2 to 5 of them will get a job. The rest of them are just doing nothing. Imagine if we have 95 of them doing working immediately and just 5 of them still looking for work. You can imagine how much production that will be happening in Nigeria. So what can we do? The incoming government, because the Buhari government is already on the way out. We can't tell them anything again. They need to take care of the incoming government. They need to take care of the basic things. Increase electricity, bringing rain, boost agricultural mechanization, take care of law enforcement so that some militants don't come and drive farmers away from their farms. Those kinds of basic things you will see that Nigeria will take off and we'll start heading to becoming a developed nation. Before now, we had a problem of electricity that was even worse than we have. We hear that it's been increased and even though we are still so low, 3,000 megawatts as against 730,000 you said in the UK supplying only 60 million people. That is like 727,000 megawatts higher than Nigeria. But even then, with the production of megawatts we have in the electricity sector, a lot of people are even saying it's more cost effective if you operate without the electricity because the tariff for the electricity is so much. Are you saying that if electricity is generated more, if power is generated more, it will cost less? Because if it doesn't cost less, I'm not sure it's going to change much in the economy. It will cost far less. Let me give you a scenario. You know, we used to have only one NEPA. One NEPA for the whole Nigeria. That one NEPA was producing 3,000 megawatts. They had one managing director, a few executive directors and thousands of staff. The government now went to privatization drive that privatized both the generation sector and the distribution sector. In the generation sector, I can't remember the exact number of companies that are in the generation sector now, but I believe they should be up to like 9. You know, I don't have the numbers of it. That means 9 managing directors, 9 sets of executive directors and so many other paraphernalia of office. Let's go to the distribution sector. Again, the government privatized distribution. I still can't remember the total number of companies. Maybe there are 16. Distribution companies. In Lagos alone, there are two. mainland and Ikeja. I mean Ikeja and Ireland. These distribution companies, each of them have a managing director, a set of executive directors and all of that. But how much electricity is generated? 3,000. So you can see that the cost of production of this 3,000 has risen astronomically and output has not changed. So if output increases, then you need cost. We come down. So let us now say at 3,000 megawatts we are spending 3 million to produce it. So it then means that a megawatt is 100,000. Assuming we now increase that production to about 10,000 megawatts at a million, then it becomes 1,000 era. It's just the mathematics. It cannot be more than that. And look, we have a very classical example. Classical example in telecoms in this same Nigeria. I don't know how old you were then, but when I was growing up as a university undergraduate during that time we used to have what we call NITRE. And NITRE, they used to have these landlines that used wire to connect to somebody's house. And then they had the 0900, which was their own form of mobile phones. As at that time, Nigeria had a total of about 250,000 of those lines. And that was for the whole Nigeria. With NITRE, managing director, executive directors controlling it. We have to spend hundreds or thousands, as at then, to be able to get a telephone line. We stepped the emptiness of this world. From 250,000 lines in Nigeria. Today, Nigeria is almost getting 200 million lines of telephone. Almost 200 million. What is the cost of telephone in 90 days? A hundred and something thousand. The cost of getting a line Nigeria is almost 200 million. You can actually get a SIM card for free. And then you look for touchlight handset. You are already talking. In those days, that mobile phone was a big man. You remember that even the minister of telecoms in those days, David Mack, he made a famous statement that telephone is not for the poor. That's why he said if people had a handset in their hand, it was a status symbol. He said that market women, everybody have now only because the supply has increased. So that's what happens. So if we open up the economy and we are not producing humongous quantity of goods and services, the prices are going to crash. And not only that, we are going to be making foreign exchange from our exports. Now that we will be looking for money to chase the dollar to go and buy at high cost. We are being joined by Charles another public affairs analyst. And Charles, we are so glad to have you join us even at this moment. Welcome to the program. Thank you for having me, Mr. Wangu. Thank you to my co-guests. So right now we don't even know whether to shout hallelujah or to say we are dead because of the pronouncements of the federal government. They are saying that on the one hand, approval has been given. It has been approved that the salaries of civil servants be increased. On the other hand, the president has not even approved the percentage with which they are going to do the increment. Which means the approval is not complete. And now in the markets the word has already gone round that there is an increment an approved increment for the civil servants. That will start from January and all that. And we are just looking at everything and asking ourselves why did we get here? Does the government even really need to come to the public space and announce before increment of salary of the civil servants and all that? Because in Nigeria everything is fanfare. And I was asking Nick what can we do to douse the tension that will come with these announcements that is not even we are not even sure will come to fruition. What are some of the things that we should start doing now? What are some of the plans that we should put in place now? What can we hold the next government accountable for? As it regards the inflation rate, the salaries of the people who are working for the government and so many other issues. We are at the fixed point right now. Charles, what is your perspective? What do you have to say about this increment of salary that we may not even see? Thank you Mr. The number one part is that you have to look at the issues that we have grabbed even before increasingly made the statement, made on channels yesterday. The first was that the NRC has been talking about strike, going on strike to pick it for increasing the cost of the trade cost of premium motors all over the country. They have been also talking about a lot of issues that is making it difficult for workers to meet up with their own responsibilities. And they have been saying if you have been following the news that they are warming up first, the national strike. You also had the the NRC that he hopes that workers will not fulfill the threat of going to and backing on an industrial action. And now this happened and it premeditated this so-called plan to increase civil service salaries. Like you said and which is now my position stating that you are going to increase civil service salary and you have included it in the 23rd budget and not stating the percentage or the amount of such increment is just the way of the Bonari government of always trying to be clever by half. Now you saw what I narrated in the background I give the background I give about the federal government getting tired or getting afraid or jittery about an impending strike by the NRC. They have to do they have to make the promise made yesterday for me to placate the workers and make them not to carry out the threat of going to strike or backing on strike. For me it is just being clever by half. You have not stated how much the budgetary provision for 2023 that is a amount for such salary increment and if both workers you said it is taking off in January according to him yesterday you said it is taking off in January this is much civil service by this time should be at this time be expecting the third salary for the year 2023. I mean and you are still talking about not being sure of how much is approved for such increment. For me it is the workers should ignore it it is one of those ways the budgetary government tries to think that the rest of Nigerians particularly civil servants are not smart, they are not clever and it is also the budgetary government always being clever by half. Mr Wangu and the rest of Nigerians including those who are watching this program will agree with me that every attempt by the dissent government which has present Muhammad Buhari as the minister of petroleum to regularize for a price now has proved about it. The years they've been selling 195 in Abuja so I'm placing the selling 200 but the first I bought on Sunday morning which finished today for 280 Naira in a point state I'm not clicking to be precise there are places they are still selling for for 300 Naira and the minister of petroleum is not addressing these core issues that is even the core issues that should be addressed for workers to now have a leverage so that even if you increase the salary by say 5% it will be meaningful in the economic market of today. It will be valuable to all and Sunday including the commercial or the paper seller in the market now you've not addressed the core the real issues which is even the globalizing the core price it would have been better for the federal government to say okay 4% is going for 250 Naira or 209 Naira per liter or 260 Naira let there be a bank on price for it and people will understand it to be a crossbow but as I speak with you the price they are selling in levels Abuja protocol is different from the price they are selling in similar levels of the country that is hypocrisy taking to a new level so I don't think the workers should celebrate about this announcement by Chris and Kay I also sympathize with workers because the grand seller in the market is already like you said carrying the news that salaries have been increased generally salaries you pay it is the same rate okay for the months we paid this is the percentage and this is how we now intend to augment the months we paid you based on this increment so the grand government has simply made this promise or if it has increased it would have been taking through the back door like it has always done in other areas the other areas we know where salaries have been increased or funds have been provided like in the case of IMEC 400 billion dollars provided for elections and we saw what was worse in history than before so I only sympathize with the NRC leadership because with this now people will say oh they said they want to increase their salary why go on protests why pickets why go on an industrial action so for the minister of labor in his capacity and in his personality in his official capacity to have made a pronouncement that was so vague so looking like the rest of us don't understand what it means to say you have a salary increment you didn't even say it is by 3% or by 5% or by 10% so the minister of labor can now sit down with this what I'm expecting now where this is the result takes place is that my salary is going to go from maybe 85,000 plus 5% which will now bring it to maybe 100,000 and it cannot bring it to plan its life based on that and the year is almost 3 months of the year is almost gone you have 9 months to go so where have the so called proposal increment for the months of January and February where has it been double period ok Nick let me come to you ok sorry let me go to Nick this is a simple question I just want to get an answer to this salary increment from what I was talking earlier and all that I just want to know is it a right or a privilege for workers Nick it is a right for the workers every worker deserves his or her due wage so if you employ somebody you have to pay them to employ somebody and not to pay them if it was in a country like the UK where I'm speaking to here now it's a criminal offence if the workers report you to the authorities the authorities are going to take action against you if you don't have money to employ people then don't employ them or if you employ people and then you now realize that your business is not doing well then you have to find a way to cut costs to keep your employees or you have to release some of the employees so that they can go to where they will be paid so even in the Bible the Holy Scripture says that every worker is due their wage so for employers in Nigeria especially the government that have been owing workers there are states where you hear that workers have been owed for one year, two years and all of that it's sacrilege so anybody that has been employed they are right to be paid we understand Nick just a moment Nick we understand a laborer deserves his wages and the government to be fair let's say they are paying them let's not even think about whether they are owing them we're not even talking about the retirees and all those people who some of them have been owed for 30 months and all that people who really need the money even more than the people who can still have some side hustle I'm asking about this salary increment because the way it is made to look like is that we feel your pain and that's why we are doing this out of the goodness of our heart is that what it is or it is the right of the workers for this increment the right of the workers to demand for the increment like I said in the opening remarks that I had a salary that is not increased but at least the rate of inflation leaves the workers poorer so you can be paying somebody 100,000 and you actually give them physically 100,000 every month if in the market the inflation is rising that person is only going to be able to buy less and less and less on what they would buy with their salary with every succeeding month that is why the inflation ratio be the minimum benchmark for employers to increase worker salaries to keep their situation the same and there are jurisdictions where governments have very strict measures in terms of minimum wage like in Nigeria nobody is enforcing minimum wage and at the end of the day the minimum wage is only being paid by the government if you look at all of those people who are in the informal sector some of them are being paid 100,000 there are people who are being paid 5000 a month especially if the employer provides them accommodation and things like that the employer should actually enforce minimum wage so that whoever is employed needs to be paid that and whoever is employed needs to get their salary increased to match the inflation rate even if it is not 100% of the inflation rate there should be at least some increment to ensure that the workers are not left to wash off so it is a right for workers as far as I can see that their salaries need to be increased let me come to you for your closing remark this has been said in public glare and everything but let me take comments from both of you to Nigerians who might be thinking that there is a different development I don't want to call it a better development something better coming it may be something good it may not be something good but Nigerians need some words that will keep them going so let me start from you as a wrap up from you thank you very much for Nigerians particularly the workers they should continue to be hopeful hopefully besides that the general situation of the country the gloom that is all over if you add the gloomness of what is happening around you it will also lead to depression, anxiety and a lot of that so for them and for a couple of Nigerians we should trust that things will get better that is number one secondly I would appreciate personally if the progress in the game will give a detailed press statement or a press conference that is partiating on what is said on China's traditional history because a lot of persons a lot of times they just pitch out comments sometimes they don't know the implication as far as we are concerned if you put on Google the issue about salary increment you are still going to be referred to what he said that was published on daily trust around December last year where he said the federal government was not contemplating any implement of a worker salary of any kind now if you if we should place that side by side $30,000 a month wish place side by side with the cost of a bag of ice a bag of apacic key rice now costs almost that amount of money monthly minimum wage of $30,000 so work with the average family too with such amount of money the problem here Mr. Wampoo and the rest of customers and viewers of this program is not that we are in luck we are not in luck if the $400 billion that was spent on I-Leg was even used to just maybe 10% of it let me say 20-30% of it was used to take care of these workers who were in having about $40 billion if you plunge in $40 billion especially to the eminence of civil servants in the country they would have been awesomest so let us continue to be optimistic and hope that this will change for the future in this country Nick, a final word from you to Nigerians and even the government as briefly as possible thank you very much my final word to Nigerians is that it is good that we should stand up and fight for our rights Nigerians have sat back and absorbed all sorts of things thrown at them by the leaders so now that the the labor union wanted to take action on the currency scarcity and now the government is talking about salary increase so this is what you get when you stand up and agitate for your rights as we speak today France is boiling because the people of France are agitating for their rights that's a developed nation so even in the developed nation where systems work and everything it takes the people's protest for government to shift to the government that as much as they want to increase worker salary they have to match that vis-à-vis the quantity of goods that are being produced in Nigeria goods and services because in years past we have what we call Udoji Award where government will call one day and put so much money in the hands of workers which have commensurate increase in the quantity of goods and services that were produced and that thing led to big inflation that has lived with Nigeria till now so increase salary but make sure that you also boost production and watch the quantity of goods that are in the market ok thank you very much gentlemen Charles O'Too and Nika Goulay for coming on the program and giving your perspective on this announcement on salary increase thank you so much for being a part of this today's program thank you for having me thank you so much have a good evening you too ok we'll take a very short break looking at the security situation it was a discussion we held yesterday but it's still very relevant today and we're hoping that you're going to stay with us