Saturday Magazine | Youth Magazine
Canadian doctors protest pay rise while Nigerian lawmakers defend theirs
By Gbenga Adebambo | 24 March 2018 | 4:31 am


“The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed”- Mahatma Gandhi

Wonders, they say, will never end. About two weeks ago, a story about a group of Quebec doctors in Canada rejecting a proposed pay raise garnered international attention and wowed the international community.

Around the same time, Senator Shehu Sani revealled that the monthly allowance of a Nigerian senator gross around N13.8million.

Apart from the monthly package, each senator is given the opportunity to execute constituency projects to the tune of N200 million per annum.

Advertisement

Advertisement
However, Sani’s disclosure does not cover a senator’s allowances for cars, housing, wardrobe, furniture, etc, running to several millions of naira.

With this recent disclosure, it is now firmly ascertained than a Nigerian senator receives 767 times the basic minimum wage (N18, 000) of an average civil servant in a month.

About the same time, nearly 700 physicians signed a petition demanding the cancellation of pay raises for Quebec physicians. The Canadian doctors protested that they were being paid too much (yes, too much). The physicians’ group said it could not in good conscience accept pay raises when working conditions remained difficult for others.

The petition letter reads: “We, Quebec doctors, who believe in a strong public system, oppose the recent salary increases negotiated by our medical federations.

“We are asking that the salary increases granted to physicians be cancelled and that the resources of the system be better distributed for the good of the health care workers and to provide health services worthy to the people of Quebec.”

The group said members were offended and shocked that they would receive raises when nurses, clerks and other professionals are struggling and facing very difficult working conditions. They felt appalled by lack of access to required services by patients and the nagging disinterest of the government in the total wellbeing of other professionals.

Bizarrely, this petition didn’t originate from the general populace, but among the physicians themselves. The news, naturally, elicited plenty of positive responses. The Washington Post called the move “utterly Canadian.”

It is poignant to know that these Canadian doctors actually deserve the pay rise. In Canada, it is worth remembering that physicians often spend more than a decade on post-secondary education, while accruing an average debt of nearly $100,000.

Once licensed, they are categorised as independent contractors and are, therefore, not eligible for the same pensions and benefits, such as drug coverage and maternity leave, as other public employees.

If the doctors could term their own pay increase as “indecent,” then I wonder what kind of description could be used for the unsustainable allowances for our legislators.

I want to categorically say that I am openly ashamed of our reward system in Nigeria. Through our lopsided reward system, we have perpetuated decadence and eulogised impunity. We are a nation of victims; victims of a poor reward system.

Nigerian legislators have over time been associated with jumbo pay, surreptitious allowances and ‘scandalous constituency fraud’ repackaged and re-named constituency allowances. Can we justify the constituency allowance collected by the Nigerian lawmakers?

Our system is plagued by selfish politicians, who would rather milk the nation dry than have any part of their allowances negotiated for the benefit of the populace.

It is no news that Nigeria has the highest paid legislature in the world.
It is pitiable to note that the Nigerian constitution even stipulates that they shall be entitled to sit for 181 days out of 365 days. Literally, according to work ethics, they should be on part-time more or less .


For further read:

Nigerian lawhttps://guardian.ng/saturday-magazine/canadian-doctors-protest-pay-rise-while-nigerian-lawmakers-defend-theirs/amp/