A member of the House of Representatives on Tuesday said that as many as 70% of federal civil servants may be on the government payroll without performing productive work, describing the problem as a central obstacle to sustaining the nation’s minimum wage.
Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin, who represents Kano State’s Kiru/Bebeji constituency, said the federal government’s swollen workforce had made wage obligations increasingly difficult to meet.
He spoke during a panel at the launch of the governing All Progressives Congress’s 2027 presidential manifesto at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja.
“I can tell you that probably 70% of the people that over the decades we pumped into the civil service at the federal level, they sit on their table without doing any work,” Jibrin said.
He argued that any serious debate over the minimum wage must begin with the structure of the public service.
“When you talk about the issue of minimum wage, we also have to look at how practical it is for government to be able to pay that, for any government, not only this government, without us also reviewing the fact,” he said.
Jibrin said he was not calling for mass layoffs, rather, he said, Nigeria needed a frank discussion about why the state could not sustainably fund wages despite employing so many people.
“We pump too many people into the system who are actually not doing any of the work, and the government cannot carry the wage,” he said.
His remarks come as Nigeria’s national minimum wage stands at 70,000 naira a month, following an increase signed into law in 2024.
The APC manifesto describes that increase as a major achievement of President Bola Tinubu’s first term and commits the party to improving workers’ living standards through 2031.
Public-sector unions have pressed for a new wage review, with the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council seeking at least 500,000 naira monthly from 2027, while the Trade Union Congress has called for 300,000 naira.
Housing and energy Jibrin also addressed Nigeria’s housing market, attributing sharp price differences to weak regulation.
He said two nearly identical homes on the same street could be priced at 300 million naira and 1 billion naira, a gap he said reflected the absence of an effective regulator rather than differences in location or construction costs.
He called for solar power to be incorporated into building standards, arguing that new housing developments should treat solar installation as a requirement rather than an optional feature.
NewsQuest reports that the event marked the public presentation of the APC’s “From Reforms to Prosperity: Agenda 2027–2031,” a document of more than 100 pages organized around security, quality of life, energy and economic growth, and governance.
Its targets include single-digit inflation, peak electricity generation of 10,000 megawatts, and the construction of 200,000 homes nationwide.
Senior government officials attended, including the Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila, who delivered a goodwill message; Minister of Industry Jumoke Oduwole, who presented the manifesto; Information Minister Mohammed Idris; Solid Minerals Minister Dele Alake; and Budget Minister Atiku Bagudu.
