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Claim: An X user, @Gen_Buhar, claimed that the Federal Government is 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 agitation is due to the skyrocketing inflation caused by the removal of fuel subsidies 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 minimum wage approved by the federal government in 2019.
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 Spectacles 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 is planning on taking over payment of state and local government workers
The tweet reads, “BREAKING NEWS.. FG To Take Over Salary Payment From The State Governors and Rename All Nigeria Workers as Nigerians Civil Servants both state, LG and FG should be using IPPIS. This will allow the Governor’s to be using their monthly Allocation to develop their state…..NAN”
While claiming that the source of information was the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN”), he added that,
“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,’ state citizens 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 had 736,500 views, 1,700 comments, 1,300 retweets 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 the information was from the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN). This prompted DUBAWA to check Google Engine search to see if NAN had an article on the topic.
Using the keyword, “Fg to take over state government workers salary” did not bring out any result from the topic by NAN or any other credible media.
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 will, 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 it is 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 is not true that the federal government plans to enrol state and local government workers on its IPPIS platform, which is strictly for federal government workers.
Conclusion
The claim that the federal government will soon take over the salary payment of state and local government workers is false. The claim was based on an article on a news blog, The Spectacles.
This report is produced for the DUBAWA 2024 Kwame Karikari Fact-Checking Fellowship in partnership with Daily Trust Newspaper to facilitate the ethos of truth in journalism and enhance media literacy in Nigeria.
