The Great Betrayal: How Nigeria’s Government Has Robbed Its Workers of Real Wages -By Leonard Karshima Shilgba

In Nigeria today, the loudest boast of some government officials is that the Tinubu administration has “increased” the minimum wage. But this is an empty boast — in fact, it is a cruel deception. When we strip away the fog of propaganda and measure in hard currency, it becomes clear that Nigerian workers have been cheated, impoverished, and robbed of dignity.

Let us look at the facts.

Wages in Dollars Then and Now

In 2010, under President Goodluck Jonathan, the naira exchanged at about ₦148–₦160 to one US dollar. The national minimum wage of ₦18,000 per month, when converted, was worth over $100. Put in today’s terms, that would equal more than ₦150,000 in monthly pay.

By contrast, in 2024 under President Tinubu, after fuel subsidy removal and foreign-exchange “deregulation,” the minimum wage was raised to ₦70,000 per month. Yet at the prevailing official/market rates at the time — often between ₦1,200 and ₦1,300 to one US dollar (which as at today is much higher by about 25 percent, scaled up to above ₦ 1, 500 to one US dollar in much of 2025) — that same minimum wage translates to barely $50–$60.

Is this an “increase”? No. It is a collapse — a cut of at least 50 percent in dollar terms on the 2010 minimum wage, and far worse once you factor in the hyperinflation battering food and transport costs.

For Nigerian academics the picture is even bleaker. In 2010, a professor’s monthly salary, when converted at the prevailing exchange rate, was worth over $3,000. Today, the same pay scale, unchanged in real terms, converts to less than $400. That is barely 13 percent of what professors earned in dollar terms a little over a decade ago! When you ponder such humongous erosion of professorial salaries in 15 years, the consequences should be clear, shouldn’t they? Additionally, such erosion tells a disturbing story—either Nigeria’s social and economic managers lack understanding of the nexus between education reward system and development or they just don’t care. 

The Federal Wage Bill: The Numbers Do Not Lie

Sources: Budget Office appropriation documents, World Bank/CBN exchange rate data, media budget trackers.

What does this mean?

• The Federal Government’s wage bill in USD terms has collapsed by more than 65% since Jonathan’s time, while it has collapsed by over 200 % in USD terms since Buhari’s time (even in naira terms, it has collapsed)! 
• Minimum wage in dollar terms has fallen by more than half.
• Professors earn less than one-sixth of what they did a decade ago, even before adjusting for today’s runaway inflation.

The Great Transfer of Wealth

This is the great betrayal of Nigeria’s workers. The government earns foreign exchange mainly in US dollars from oil and gas sales. In Nigeria’s yearly budget preparations and appropriations, certain benchmarks are set, including the naira exchange rate to the USD, crude oil production projection (i.e., projected number of barrels of crude oil for daily exports), and minimum price of a barrel of crude oil in USD in the budget year. Exclusive of tax revenues in naira, to pay salaries, the Nigerian government converts those earned dollars from oil/gas exports into naira. When the exchange rate collapses, the government’s dollar obligation to workers shrinks drastically — while its naira revenues multiply. In other words, the government saves more dollars, earns more naira, and passes on inflation to Nigerian workers and their families, whose income is indirectly heavily “taxed” through inflation. To demonstrate how Nigeria’s Federal Government’s dollar obligation to workers has shrunk drastically and significantly, I provide this example: between 2010 and 2015, the Federal Government (under President Jonathan) required more than $ 3 million a month to pay the salaries of 1, 000 professors. Today, with only $400, 000 (a mere 13% of what the Jonathan government spent even alongside its fuel subsidy payment obligation), the Tinubu government can pay the monthly salaries of the same number of professors! Put another way, with just $4.8 million (less than two-month wage bill under Jonathan’s administration), President Tinubu’s government can pay the annual salaries of 1, 000 Nigerian professors! Why would a government treat its best brains this way; why has the Tinubu government taken more than 80% away from professors’ real income?  

In effect, the Nigerian state has executed a silent confiscation of workers’ income. The removal of fuel subsidies, the deregulation of the naira, and the refusal to adjust wages meaningfully in real terms have combined into one of the largest transfers of wealth from workers to government in Nigeria’s history. Added to all these is the burden of the spiked costs of government services such as driver’s license and vehicle license renewal, international passport purchase and renewal, etc., coupled with an  assortment of government levies.

The Moral Outrage

What does this mean for Nigerian families? It means that while the Federal Government brags about “fiscal discipline” and “increased revenue,” millions of households cannot afford school fees, hospital bills, or a decent meal. It means that the brilliant young minds who once aspired to the professoriate now flee the country, unwilling to toil for peanuts. It means that our nurses, doctors, engineers, and teachers see emigration not as ambition, but as survival.

This is not simply an economic miscalculation. It is an injustice — a betrayal of the social contract. Governments exist to protect and uplift their people, not to impoverish them while fattening their own treasuries. Recently, President Tinubu announce that his government had met its 2025 annual revenue target in August (with 4 months left of the year)! While I congratulate him on this, I am not surprised (and if you have read this essay up to this point, you shouldn’t be either), I remind him of his obligation to end this forced injustice on Nigerian workers. 

A Call for Truth and Justice

Let us be clear: Nigeria today does not earn less foreign exchange than in Jonathan’s time. Oil production has not ceased. The government has saved billions by removing fuel subsidies. Revenues are indeed higher in naira terms. Yet Nigerian workers take home far less in real value. It is apparent that the Tinubu administration does not prioritize workers’ living wage, and so the savings from subsidy removal and humungous government naira revenues from the naira “deregulation” policy have not resulted in improved wages but rather in increased impoverishment of workers and their families. I am not sure that a Nigerian worker, who now pays about 10 times the amount he paid for a commodity barely 10 years ago would be asking too much if he requests a restoration of his real income 10 years ago:  A loaf of bread that cost ₦ 200 in 2015 costs ₦ 2, 500 today; a carton of cornflakes that cost ₦ 150 in 2015 costs more than ₦ 3,000 now; 2.3-kg powdered milk that cost ₦ 2,000 in 2015 costs more than ₦ 30, 000 now, etc., whereas, for instance, a professor at a federal university earned up to a net salary of ₦ 450, 000 a month in 2015. Now (2025), the same professor earns a net salary of about ₦ 640, 000, whereas, the prices of those common household foods and items have increased, in some cases by between 1,000% and 2,000%! This same professor whose net salary in 2015 could buy more than 280 bags of cement can buy only about 65 bags of cement with his current net salary of ₦ 640, 000. Can this professor build a decent house to retire to at 70? 

It is time we stopped repeating the hollow boast that the minimum wage has been “increased.” What has happened is a drastic reduction in the value of Nigerian wages, an erosion of dignity, and an unprecedented economic injustice.

If our leaders truly seek reform, then let them tie wages to the dollar again — or to a realistic measure of purchasing power. Let them pay Nigerian workers not in empty naira notes, but in real value that can sustain families and futures. Until then, every boast about wage “increases” is nothing more than propaganda, and every salary slip is a testament to the betrayal of the Nigerian worker.

© Shilgba

shilgba@gmail.com