For too long, the Nigerian worker has been offered a familiar ritual in place of genuine relief. Whenever hardship deepens, the labour leadership summons the press, threatens a strike, and narrows the entire question of survival to one demand: an increase in salaries. The government resists just enough to appear reluctant, the public waits, and eventually a new minimum wage is announced as a victory.
In 2024, it was ₦70,000, presented as a historic improvement on ₦30,000. Two years later, that same ₦70,000 has been eroded by inflation and described, even by labour leaders, as a poverty wage. The worker is back where he started, except that prices have climbed higher, rent has become more brutal, and the same leaders are preparing another round of salary arithmetic.
This is not an accident. It is a pattern, and the pattern raises a disturbing question: are Nigeria’s labour leaders fighting for the workers, or are they fighting for the headlines, the negotiating table and their own comfortable place within a system that keeps the worker poor?
To begin with, salary increases have become a spectacle whose benefits are largely imaginary. A worker earning ₦70,000 who spends a large portion of that sum to cook a single pot of jollof rice is not being rescued by a wage review. After food, rent, transport, school fees and healthcare, what remains is not a salary but a reminder of how little the formal wage can carry.
Worse still, Nigeria’s workforce is overwhelmingly informal. The vast majority of traders, artisans, transport workers, farmers and self-employed persons are outside the formal salary structure altogether. A new minimum wage does not enter their pockets. It does not reduce the price of garri, rice, tomatoes, eggs, petrol or cement. It is a distant political theatre performed by men who claim to speak for “the workers” while representing only a fraction of the labour force. The labour leadership knows this, yet it continues to present each wage increment as though the decimal point itself were nourishment.
Furthermore, labour leaders consistently emphasise salary increases while ignoring the costs that actually determine whether a worker can live. If they truly had the love of the workers at heart, they would mount pressure on government to reduce the price of foodstuffs, building materials, transport and essential services. They would demand emergency price regulation, competition enforcement, social housing and affordable staple foods.
Instead, they allow government to convert wage negotiations into political palliatives. After much pressure, government announces a new figure, labour leaders declare victory, and workers are expected to be grateful. Yet there is no positive effect on the teeming workers who fall deeper into poverty because the things they must buy have risen faster than the salary they receive. The last ₦70,000 minimum wage has been eroded by inflation. Another increase without price intervention will be eroded in the same way. A salary increase without a cost of living strategy is a treadmill, and the worker is the one running on it.
The lapses of the labour leadership become even clearer when one examines the specific burdens crushing workers and the masses. Food prices have risen beyond the reach of ordinary families. A bag of rice, a measure of beans, a litre of palm oil and a crate of eggs now consume a frightening share of a monthly wage. Tomatoes, peppers, onions and other staples fluctuate wildly, while the labour movement looks on without sustained protest.
Similarly, transport fares have doubled and tripled in many cities, eating into the little that remains after food. Workers who commute daily from the outskirts of Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano spend a substantial portion of their income simply getting to work, yet labour leaders have not organised mass pressure for affordable public transport, fuel price stabilisation or rail alternatives. The cost of living has become a monster, and the labour leadership keeps feeding it with salary reviews while refusing to confront the prices that devour the salary.
However, the most glaring evidence of labour’s selective anger is housing, and everything connected to it. A bag of cement that once sold for a fraction of its present price now attracts quotations of ₦15,000 in many markets and, in some reported cases, over ₦150,000 for grades or localities where supply has been distorted. Whether one takes the lower open market figure or the higher distressed quotation, the point is the same. Shelter has become a luxury.
Beyond cement, the entire chain of building has been priced out of the worker’s reach. A plot of land in what used to be affordable outskirts now costs several millions of naira. Sharp sand, granite, 12mm and 16mm iron rods, roofing sheets, tiles, plumbing and electrical fittings have all doubled or tripled. Even artisans’ charges, including those of bricklayers, carpenters, welders and electricians, have soared because they too are struggling to survive.
Worse still is the official extortion that accompanies land. The cost of obtaining a Certificate of Occupancy, otherwise known as C of O, survey plan, building plan approval, development levy, bush entry and foundation inspection fees charged by state and local governments has become prohibitive. In many states, the official and unofficial payments required to perfect title to land cost almost as much as the land itself. A worker who manages to save and buy a small plot is then confronted with years of fees before he can lay a single block. How can such a worker ever build a house? How can he escape the rent trap?
Consequently, a room self-contained is now difficult for many workers and their families to afford. Building materials are costly, land is costly, title is costly, and rents have risen sharply as landlords pass on these costs. Yet where are the labour leaders? Who finds out from the producers why cement is not within the reach of the masses? Who confronts state governments on why C of O now costs millions? Who has organised mass protests outside the cement plants, the land registries, or the offices of physical planning authorities? Who has demanded that government enforce its own agreement with manufacturers to sell at a lower price and publish a transparent schedule for land titling? The labour leadership has issued statements, but statements are not struggles. The same movement that can threaten a nationwide shutdown over a minimum wage figure has found no comparable energy to confront the system that has made housing impossible for the workers it claims to represent.
This silence becomes even more damning when one considers that many Nigerian producers and land speculators are believed to be within the corridor of power, protected, courted and consulted. Nigeria produces more cement than it consumes, with installed capacity far above domestic demand, yet prices remain among the highest in Africa. A handful of dominant producers control almost the entire market and post record profits while ordinary Nigerians pay more for cement than consumers in neighbouring countries.
A presidential directive to bring down prices was reportedly ignored. The competition regulator has had to investigate possible price manipulation, abuse of market power and restrictions on domestic supply. Think tanks have documented weak competition and extraordinary profit margins. Cross-border comparisons show the same cement selling for far less outside Nigeria. Similarly, land administration in many states has become a revenue racket rather than a public service. These are not secrets. They are public facts. The labour leaders have access to them. They know that confronting the cement oligopoly and the land bureaucracy means confronting powerful interests that sit close to government. That is precisely why they avoid it. It is easier, safer and more career enhancing to demand another salary review than to ask why a locally produced bag of cement and a plot of land in one’s own state are priced beyond the reach of the local worker.
Herein lies the conspiracy of comfortable leadership. Salary negotiations are visible, dramatic and photogenic. They produce press conferences, strike notices and the appearance of militant struggle. By contrast, a campaign against cement prices, land costs, C of O fees, rent inflation, food cartels or the collapse of public healthcare is diffuse, technical and difficult to claim as a personal triumph. It requires sustained engagement with industrial policy, competition regulation, housing finance, land reform, agricultural logistics and social protection.
It also requires a willingness to confront the powerful interests believed to sit within the corridor of power. The labour leadership has shown little appetite for that harder work. Its own children are not necessarily in public schools without desks. Its own families are not necessarily navigating the rental market from a one room apartment in a neglected suburb, nor queuing for months for a C of O. The struggle it leads is calibrated to the sensitivities of the negotiating table, not the desperation of the worker who earns ₦70,000 and supports six people. The labour leader returns from Abuja with a wage win and is celebrated. The worker returns from the market with half a bag of rice and is forgotten.
In the meantime, the social amenities that should give meaning to a monthly salary have collapsed. A worker who spends the best part of his life in service to the nation should be able to afford decent housing, good education for his children and healthcare that does not require out of pocket payment before a nurse will attend to a sick child. He should have roads that do not destroy his vehicle, public transport that does not consume a third of his income, and a public school system that does not require him to buy chalk, desks and security. Electricity should be stable and affordable, water should flow from public taps, and hospitals should have drugs and personnel.
Yet many workers earn a salary every month and still cannot afford a room self-contained, cannot guarantee good education for their children, and cannot secure good healthcare beyond deceit. They cannot buy land, cannot pay for C of O and building approval, cannot afford sand, granite or iron rods, and cannot escape exploitative rent. The labour leadership has not mobilised sustained nationwide action over the collapse of public healthcare. It has not called mass protests over the state of public schools. It has not demanded social housing at scale or radical reform of land titling. It has not made the price of food, cement, land, transport and electricity the central issue of its struggle. It has preferred the wage figure because the wage figure is concrete, negotiable and photogenic, while the conditions that make a wage meaningful are left to rot.
For this reason, the salary increase must be condemned as a distraction rather than celebrated as a victory. A rise in pay that is immediately swallowed by higher food prices, higher transport fares, higher rents, higher electricity tariffs, higher land costs, higher C of O and survey fees, and higher building material costs is not a gain. It is a cruel illusion, and the labour leaders who sell it know that it is an illusion.
Instead of demanding another salary increase, they should insist that government reduce the pains of the masses and workers in the areas that matter. Let them demand that the price of foodstuffs be brought down through support for local farmers, improved storage, better roads and market regulation. Let them demand that transportation be made affordable through functional public transport, rail and fuel price stability. Let them demand that building materials, especially cement, sand, granite and iron rods, be priced within the reach of ordinary Nigerians through competition enforcement and, where necessary, price regulation. Let them demand affordable land, a transparent and capped fee for C of O, survey and building plan approval, and mass social housing. Let them demand functional public schools, equipped hospitals, potable water, stable electricity and social housing. Let them demand a living wage that is indexed to the real cost of living, not a nominal figure announced to applause and eroded before the next news cycle. These are the demands that would actually change the lives of workers. Salary arithmetic alone will not.
Finally, election season is approaching, and Nigerian voters are eager. Labour leaders are already positioning themselves as kingmakers, declaring that workers will vote out anti labour governors and that 2027 must be a moment of reckoning. This is exactly the moment for workers to see the performance for what it is.
The warning is simple and strong. Do not vote for any politician or labour backed candidate who promises a higher minimum wage while refusing to address the cost of food, housing, land, C of O, cement, transport, education and healthcare. Do not support any labour leader who can mobilise for a salary review but cannot mobilise against a cement oligopoly, a land speculation cartel, a food cartel or a rent market that is turning workers into paupers.
Let the masses at large support workers on the right demands rather than on deceit. Let them demand affordable staple foods, price regulation on essential building materials, affordable land with a low and fixed C of O fee, mass social housing, free and functional education, and healthcare that does not bankrupt families. Let them demand that government reduce the high cost of the things that are making workers and the masses become paupers before another round of salary arithmetic is announced.
Until then, every new minimum wage should be treated with suspicion. It is not a victory. It is a distraction. And the workers who cheer today will be the same ones struggling to cook a pot of rice, pay for a plot of land, or process a C of O tomorrow. The labour leadership knows this. The question is whether Nigerian workers will continue to let them pretend otherwise.
Fẹmi Akinsola is a public affairs analyst and development writer.
