Salary is a wage given to a worker in form of money for services rendered. The word salary comes from a Latin word salsalis literary meaning sword. It came about from the practice of ancient Roman soldiers paying with sword because it is the most valuable item in that era. That was replaced with cash when money became accepted as a medium of exchange.
Over the years, there has been several salary structures and reviews in the country. However, a cursory look indicates that the nation is yet to arrive at an equitable salary structure. For example, there is no harmony in the salaries paid by the federal and state governments to civil servants even though the qualifications and requirements for entry into the nation’s public service are the same. It is disturbing that people with the same qualifications but employed in different offices of public service receive different salaries, a times double or even triple that of their counterpart. Even more worrisome is the disparity between salaries of the core ministries and those of departments and agencies.
This has reflected in the huge gap in salaries variations of the NNPC, CBN, FIRS, customs, paramilitary agencies and the core civil servants. Those who fix salary structures which are the cause of the wide gap forgot that all government employees buy from the same Nigerian market.
Of note also is the wider gap in salaries of permanent secretaries and directors general and their immediate subordinate. Their salaries are quite bogus compared to others who are next in rank with them. There is a compelling need for the incomes salaries and wages commission to urgently take a look at these gross anomalies and rectify it immediately.
This sorry situation was neither the norm in the first republic nor in the second republic. This practice started during the military regime from 1985 to 1998 as well as the lopsided and sadistic salary reviews that was carried out between 2005 and 2006 that ushered in this unfair practice.
In developed nations, wages are fixed based on academic and technical qualifications and allowances are fixed according to the nature of the job. Unfortunately in Nigeria, the case is not the same. In many agencies funded by the same federal budget, it is shocking to discover that a junior officer with a lower qualifications in some organizations earn higher salaries than most directorate cadre staff in many ministries and parastatals.
Under the present remuneration package, especially for elected officials, a local government chairman whose required qualifications is a secondary school certificate earns a higher salary than a university professor who have spent at least two decades in serious academic research.
Worthy to note also is the case of primary and secondary school teachers who have remained the least paid under the Nigerian salary system. It is imperative for all stakeholders to consider the human capacity development which these teachers facilitate is superior to the production of raw money which those who fix the unfair salary system in Nigeria use as a criteria.
For instance, if the NNPC, CBN and the other well paid staff are not trained by these school teachers, they wouldn’t be in position to earn any salary. Past federal governments did constitute a committee for the harmonization of wage disparity in the public service, but till today nothing has been heard of its reports or recommendations. The various labor leaders must take on the problem of wage disparity and ensure its elimination promptly.
The benefits to be derived from the correction of these anomalies are unquantifiable, it will track unnecessary job mobility and corruption. It will enthrone fairness, equity, motivation and higher productivity among workers. The private sector will also borrow a leaf from such a fair practice.
The present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari must take a step to rectify these anomalies in the salary structure of public service in the country. Let there be platform for fixing salaries, allowances can be fixed according to job demands and performances. Government must do away with all such old practices and come up with a solution to these taught provoking issues like the consolidation of salaries for various sectors, this is to ensure equity for all public servants in the country.
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