While Senator Earn N13.5m Monthly, FG Pays Train Pilots N22,000 Salary

Striking Train Pilots

KOREDE FOGO

While a Senator of the federal Republic of Nigeria earn a whopping N13.5million monthly, a train pilot go home with a paltry N22,000 as salary, BUSINESSinsiderng, can report.
BUSINESSinsiderng reports that Sen. Shehu Sani, has said that Nigerian senators are entitled to monthly expenses of N13.5m  (£27,000; $37,500), in addition to their monthly salaries of more than $2,000.
However, in a chat with our correspondent yesterday, the striking workers said they earn a paltry N22,000 as train pilots at the end of the month.
Speaking, a train pilot who would want to be anonymous because of fear of victimisation said he earns less than N22,000 monthly wondering what that will do in the present day Nigerian economy.
“At the end, I am left with with something just above N20,000 after deducting union, health and others fee from the source. How do I cater for my family and meet up with societal demands?,” He asked.
The president-general, Nigeria Union of Railway Workers (NUR), Comrade Innocent Ajiji had earlier said the corporation has the worst salary structure among agencies in the FMOT.
The NUR President General said, “The pilots who man and drive all our standard gauge trains, be it Lagos-Ibadan, Abuja-Kaduna and Warri-Itakpe are all poorly remunerated. Even the ones that drive cargo trains out of our ports, they all earn below N30,000. Are we not toying with danger? When the people that we entrust to carry passengers and cargoes on our standard gauge trains are not well motivated, can something bad not happen along such voyages?
“Aside the containers or the wagons, the locomotive engine itself is worth around N600 million Naira. If we add the value of each container that a locomotive carries, 19 containers when it is 40 feet and 38 containers when it is 20 feet, then the value of one single trip out of the ports is above N1 billion Naira. Yet, we employ a pilot who earns below N30,000 to drive these trains. Is that not ridiculous? It’s only in this country that such things happen,” he said.
Also speaking, the secretary-general of the NUR, Mr. Segun Esan, reiterated that many NRC’s workers who couldn’t bear the starving wages left enmass for greener pastures elsewhere, thereby depriving the NRC the much needed man-power to improve its operations.
He said, “The salaries earned by railway workers as at today are the poorest when compared to other agencies under the FMOT or even when compared to other ministries of government. Many professionals who were employed and could have helped in improving the rail sector have left because of the starving wages given to railway workers.
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“Between 2011 and 2021, the NRC has done about three to four rounds of recruitment, bringing in about 2,500 people to come and work in the Corporation. But do you know that as of today, we don’t have up to 500 of the 2,500 people employed between 2011 till date still in the NRC. Many of them have left because they couldn’t just cope with the starving wages that are being handed out every month as salaries.
“With the departure of these good hands, the NRC has lost human elements that could have helped in driving the sector forward,” Segun Esan said.

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