Former President Goodluck Jonathan has urged the harmonisation of salary scales and grade structures across Nigeria’s federal and state civil services. Speaking in Yenagoa on Friday, 18 September, during a foundation-laying ceremony for retired permanent secretaries, he argued that identical public duties deserve equal financial reward. He maintained that state workers match their federal peers in competence and output. A broken federation should not punish local workers. Disparities between federal ministries and sub-national secretariats merely breed deep professional resentments.
The proposal challenges the constitutional premise of Nigerian fiscal federalism. Under the 1999 Constitution, state governments possess autonomous legal powers to establish their own administrative machinery and negotiate wages according to local revenue strength. Imposing uniform pay scales would force poorer states with negligible internal revenues to match the federal purse. Abuja prints currency and collects oil receipts. State governors rely on monthly federal allocations just to fund basic overheads. Mandating identical remuneration across unequal balance sheets risks pushing fragile states into fiscal insolvency.
Jonathan drew on his past executive decisions to justify the administrative convergence. He recalled how his administration restructured the Bayelsa civil service during his tenure as governor, creating Grade Level 17 for directors who previously retired on Level 16. That move allowed state directors to retire on identical ranks with federal equivalents. He cited tertiary education as another obvious template, arguing that professors teaching in state universities deserve identical compensation to those lecturing in federal institutions. The labour remains the same across both tiers. Yet uniform labels do not erase wildly uneven payroll capacities.
The venue itself provided a stark visual contrast to the financial struggles of typical pensioners. The Bayelsa State Association of Retired Permanent Secretaries laid the foundation for a ₦500m secretariat complex in Yenagoa. Association chairman King Collins Daniel noted that the project will house administrative offices, event halls, and recreational facilities over a two-year construction period. Bayelsa State Governor Douye Diri, who spoke through Head of Service Ebiye Sawyer, promised state backing for the venture. Elite bureaucrats secure grand retirement clubs while lower-tier retirees wait months for unpaid gratuities.
The underlying economic friction lies in how sub-national governments fund public payrolls. Most of Nigeria’s 36 states generate very little internal revenue from local enterprise or income tax. They depend almost entirely on the monthly Federation Account Allocation Committee disbursements to survive. When petroleum output drops or exchange rate adjustments bite, governors routinely default on existing wage pledges. If states cannot pay modest existing baselines on schedule, adopting federal wage packets remains pure fantasy. Unfunded legal mandates do not feed families.
The struggle over the national minimum wage already exposes the limits of central pay mandates. State governors fought hard against labour unions earlier this year, warning that matching federal benchmarks would crowd out vital capital spending. Several states still carry massive arrears of pensions and accumulated civil service allowances. Forcing governors to match lucrative federal consolidated salary scales would instantly trigger mass retrenchments across local councils. Fiscal realities always defeat moral arguments about administrative fairness.
Public service productivity also weakens the argument for pay parity. State bureaucracies across Nigeria often act as informal social welfare programmes and patronage dispensers for ruling parties rather than efficient administrative bodies. Bloated payrolls consume local budgets without delivering functional public hospitals, clean drinking water, or repaired primary schools. Civil servants do not generate comparable economic value across different state economies. Rewarding public inefficiency with federal-scale pay packets will only worsen state debt burdens.
Good intentions cannot mend structural economic imbalances. Jonathan envisions an egalitarian republic where civil servants enjoy equal security regardless of their geographic deployment. Yet true fiscal autonomy requires sub-national governments to live within their actual means rather than mimicking central largesse. If states want to pay federal salaries, they must build competitive domestic economies that generate real tax revenues. Until state governments expand their own balance sheets, calls for national wage parity will remain empty populist rhetoric.