FG not planning to take over payment of state workers’ salaries

Claim: An X user, @Gen_Buhar, claimed that the Federal Government of Nigeria was making moves to take over the payment of salaries of state government workers.

Verdict: The claim is false. A check on Google search indicates that the information was based on a suggestion by someone named Bala Sesaughter in an article published on The Spectacle, an online news blog.

Full text

There has been agitation for the Nigerian government to increase the minimum wage for workers in the country. This is due to the skyrocketing inflation caused by the removal of fuel subsidy and the unification of foreign exchange. This policy by the government has seen prices of goods and services increase.

Public analysts doubt whether all the states can afford the new wage since not all have implemented the N30,000 approved by the federal government in 2019.

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With a large number of state governments relying on federal funds to pay their workers, it is difficult to allocate funds to other sectors that would aid social development.

On this basis, an article by The Spectacle suggested that the federal government should be in charge of paying state government workers to free up funds for other development projects. The article stated that this was a suggestion by someone named Bala Sesaughter.

The article’s headline was “Fed Govt to Take Over Salary Payments Burden Away From State Governors.” It called for a unified salary structure by abolishing state and local government civil servants and proposed renaming the new structure ‘Nigerian Civil Servants.’

However, an X user, @Gen_Buhar used this to claim that the federal government was planning to take over payment of state and local government workers

The tweet reads, “Breaking News: FG to Take over Salary Payment from State Governors and Rename All Nigeria Workers as Nigerians Civil Servants. Both state, local government and the federal government should be using the IPPIS. This will allow governors to use their monthly allocation to develop their states -NAN.”

While claiming that the source of information was the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN”), he added, “This is the renewed hope I voted for. This reform will put a stop to the looting of local government allocations by these self-appointed ‘emperors,’ and citizens in states can now hold their governors accountable. This is innovative and heartwarming. May President Tinubu succeed. God bless Nigeria!”

The claim was posted on April 6 and has 736,500 views, 1,700 comments, 1,300 re-tweets and 4,700 likes.

DUBAWA decided to investigate this claim because of its potential to misinform the public.

The post was also found on Facebook and Instagram using a copy-and-paste approach to content spread.

Verification

The post claimed that the information was from the News Agency of Nigeria. This prompted DUBAWA to check Google Engine search to see if NAN had an article on the topic.

The headline, “FG to Take Over State Government Workers’ Salary” did not bring out any result of the topic by NAN or any other credible media organisation. However, DUBAWA found an article by  The Spectacle, a blog website published on March 22, 2024.

The article, ‘Fed Govt to Take Over Salary Payments Burden Away from State Governors was similar to the tweet.

The article also showed that it was an opinion by Bala Sesaughter, who was proposing ways to free up funds for state governors by removing payment of workers’ salaries from their purview.

It suggested that the federal government would in turn pay the salaries of state and local government workers “via the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) platform.”

Sesaughter believes that this, when done, will cause the collapse of civil service by incorporating more workers.

He said the civil service should be given a new name: ‘Nigerian Civil Servants.’

Also, the researcher contacted Bawa Mokwa, the spokesperson for the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF). He said it was not true that the federal government is planning to enroll state and local government workers on its IPPIS platform, which is strictly for federal government workers.

Conclusion

The claim that the federal government would soon take over the payment of salaries of state and local government workers is false. The claim was based on an article on a news blog, The Spectacle.

This report is produced for the DUBAWA 2024 Kwame Karikari Fact-Checking Fellowship, in partnership with Daily Trust to facilitate the ethos of truth in journalism and enhance media literacy in Nigeria.