THE FEDERAL Executive Council’s approval of a full 100% gratuity package for Federal Civil Servants marks a genuine ‘watershed moment’ in Nigeria’s contemporary labour history. But let us be unequivocally clear: it is not a favour being bestowed upon workers but the restoration of a right workers were unjustly stripped of some two decades ago.
NATIONAL RECORD stands firmly with jubilant workers across federal secretariats and commends all labour unions whose relentless advocacy over twenty-two long years finally forced this policy reversal. The Tinubu administration deserves recognition for listening, but we must place this decision in its proper historical context.
Gratuity is not a new scheme. It is a decades-old entitlement that Nigerian civil servants enjoyed until the commencement of the Pension Reform Act 2004, when it was effectively abrogated under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS). History records that labour unions protested vehemently at the time, warning of the hardship that would follow for retiring civil servants. They were ignored. For twenty-two years, retiring federal workers, majority of whom had given thirty-five years of their lives to national development, were sent home without the financial cushion they had every constitutional right to expect.
The Head of Service, Mrs. Didi Esther Walson-Jack, correctly describes this as a “watershed moment.” But water, once released, must flow to every parched land. NATIONAL RECORD welcomes the Federal Government’s decision as a necessary and just corrective measure. However, we must state with the clearest possible voice: what the Federal Government has done, every State Government and Local Government Council must do immediately.
Nigerian workers are Nigerian workers, whether they serve in Abuja, Abeokuta, Yola, Makurdi Or Owerri. The constitutional promise embedded in Section 173 of the 1999 Constitution contemplates the payment of pensions and gratuities to all public service employees, not merely those on the federal payroll. It is unconscionable that a teacher in a local government school should retire into penury while his or her federal counterpart now receives enhanced benefits.
The restoration of this benefit is therefore not an act of generosity; it is the correction of a constitutional violation that should never have been allowed to persist for so long. The organised labour movement should therefore put the governors and local government chairpersons on notice that it will accept nothing less than the immediate extension of this restored gratuity to every tier of government. In other words, they must insist that no worker should be left behind.
Yet, we must urge organised labour, particularly the Nigeria Labour Congress, to cast its gaze toward the larger battlefield. Gratuity, however welcome, addresses the end of a worker’s journey. What of the journey itself? What of the daily struggle to survive on wages that bear no relationship to the cost of living?
Nigerian workers today purchase goods and services priced according to international economic realities – local fuel prices react to global crude prices, food prices respond to supply chain shocks that began thousands of miles away, housing costs reflect inflationary pressures that respect no borders. Yet our workers’ wages remain stubbornly fixed in a local reality that refuses to acknowledge these global forces. This is not merely unjust; it is socially and economically indefensible.
If we can find resources to pay lawmakers and political appointees sums that would make their counterparts in developed nations blush, we can certainly find resources to pay workers a wage that reflects their contribution to national development. The comparison is not invidious; it is inevitable; and incontrovertibly demands an urgent response.
The time has come for organised labour to force all tiers of government to commence immediate negotiations for a living wage, not merely the minimum wage. A minimum wage is the floor below which no worker should fall; a living wage is the foundation upon which a worker can actually live. In the context of prevailing economic hardship, with inflation eroding purchasing power daily, the distinction is not academic but existential.
And here we must state a truth that many in power would prefer to ignore: if Nigerian workers are expected to operate within international economic frameworks, they must be compensated according to international wage standards.
It is a bitter irony that political office holders – whether elected or appointed – who serve for far shorter tenures never lost their generous severance packages and receive remuneration that places them among the highest-paid public servants in the world, while the career civil servant who implements policies for thirty-five years struggles to afford basic necessities.
If we can find resources to pay lawmakers and political appointees sums that would make their counterparts in developed nations blush, we can certainly find resources to pay workers a wage that reflects their contribution to national development. The comparison is not invidious; it is inevitable; and incontrovertibly demands an urgent response.
We also believe that the restoration of gratuity and the implementation of a living wage must be accompanied by a comprehensive package of welfare benefits that recognise the totality of workers’ needs: a fair mortgage system that actually enables them to own decent homes, rather than the prevailing scenario where they merely dream of such ownership while living in slums or ghettos; vehicle loans that facilitate dignified transportation to and from workplaces; and healthcare provisions that do not collapse under the weight of a first diagnosis. These are not luxuries; they are necessities in any society that claims to value labour.
The inter-ministerial committee that designed this gratuity restoration – involving the National Pension Commission, the Budget Office, and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation – has demonstrated that collaborative and technically-sound policymaking is possible. That same collaborative spirit must now address the broader welfare architecture for Nigerian workers at all levels.
NATIONAL RECORD commends President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration for taking this step. We also commend the Head of Service for her leadership; just as we commend organised labour, whose decades of struggle made this moment possible. But commendation must not become complacency. Therefore, the organised labour movement must now mobilise with renewed vigour to ensure that every state and local government worker receives the same gratuity restoration.
They must push relentlessly for the commencement of living wage negotiations. They must demand that the yawning chasm between workers’ pay and political office-holders’ emoluments be closed. And they must insist that mortgage schemes, vehicle loans, and comprehensive welfare packages cease to be talking points and become tangible realities.
As every worker or trade unionist already knows, government is bound to resist any demand for decent working conditions. However, for every fiscal pretext advanced by federal and state authorities to justify their inability to pay decent wage and decent welfare package for workers, a mountain of unimpeachable economic data exists to refute them. These hard statistics shine a bright light through the smokescreen of excuses, compelling an undeniable argument for the immediate implementation of a living wage across Nigeria.
Nigerian workers have waited long enough. The restoration of gratuity at the federal level should not be the end of the struggle for decency in the workplace; it must become a symbolism for the beginning of a new phase. The victory is sweet, but the journey is far from complete.
Workers across Nigeria ought to clearly note that what has been won at the centre can, and must, be won in every state, every local government, every corner of Nigeria where labour powers progress. The struggle must continue. It must be relentless until every Nigerian worker retires with dignity, lives with decency, and is compensated with justice. Anything less is not victory!
