THE CASUAL WORKERS OF ADAMAWA
Lamentations from Nigeria’s grossly underpaid working class.
SOMETIMES, I FEEL LIKE I’VE WASTED MY LIFE HERE
Sometimes they don’t even pay us on time. They will say there’s no money in the imprest, and still expect me to come the next day as if nothing is wrong. They don’t care if I am sick. There was a time I once fell ill and missed a day; when I returned, they looked at me like I’d quit. “Where were you?” they asked. I told them I was sick. But I had to come. There is no sick pay, no understanding. You either come or you lose your place.
WE ARE THE UNCOUNTED
“Why don’t you find another job?” I have asked myself that same question several times, over and over again. What job would give me security for my family? What job would honour the diplomas I have earned with my sweat? When I speak to others about this, most of them tell me the same line: “Be patient.” We have directors and bosses who always assure us to just keep doing this work. “By the grace of God, they will permanently deploy us.” But then a new government comes in and we see new faces sitting behind the polished desks. I keep waiting, and the years pile up.
SITTING AT THE SAME DESK AFTER 13 YEARS
I have tried to leave this job, but, you know, as somebody who has spent 13 years working in one place, I also have a passion to do this work. It is not easy to leave it and just go. It’s more than that. If I quit now, those thirteen years go down the drain. If someday I am formally appointed and then retire, at least there’s a guarantee that I will get a pension for these years. But as it stands, if I leave, the National Pension Commission doesn’t count casual years toward anything – no pension, no insurance – it’s as if I never existed. I do not want to stand before my children one day and say, “I wasted my youth here with nothing to show for it.”
IT FEELS LIKE I’M BUILDING SOMEONE ELSE’S LIFE
Our survival depends on our hard work outside the office. Farming is our lifeline. Every Saturday on weekends before dawn, I’m out in a small field with my husband when he’s not on duty planting maize and beans. It takes hours of bending, digging, and sweating under the hot sun. We hire no one because we have no money for such labour; we do it with our bare hands. Whatever we raise on that patch of land is what feeds my family through some months.
I HAVE A JOB, AND I CAN’T AFFORD IT
Many times I’ve cursed this system. I have sacrificed so much. I paid for my National Diploma in Mass Communication from Adamawa Polytechnic myself, studying from 2013 to 2015, all because of this job, thinking that when I graduated, the work would be worth it. Instead, I am still sitting here in 2026, still struggling for basic dignity. I’m 34 now, and still basically the same person carrying cameras and microphones for nothing. I have sacrificed a lot for this station.
We were taught this Yoruba poem when we were young: “Ise l’ogun ise, mura s’ise ore mi. Ise la fi n’deni giga. Bi a ko ba reni feyin ti, bi ole la’nri. Bi a ko ba reni gbekele, a tera mo’se eni.”
It means: “Work is the antidote for poverty. So, work hard, my friend. Labour is the way to gain an elevated status. If we do not have anyone to lean on, we appear indolent. If we do not have anyone to support us, we simply work harder.”
After almost two decades, growing up and living by the lessons of this poem, I wonder now if there’s still any truth to it.
Elevation as a result of hard work is not the case for many Nigerians anymore when survival is hinged on hope. Many are working, yet they still make up part of the two-thirds of people in the country who are living in multidimensional poverty, people who can’t afford food, shelter and basic needs, not because they don’t work hard, but because hard work is no longer sustainable. Survival in Nigeria is now about who has more connections and contacts. Working a 9-5 job might not be enough to afford you a bare minimum of a comfortable life.
I took my gear down to Adamawa state, in the cities of Yola and Girei, where I spent months speaking to a group of casual employees, that is, workers hired on short-term contracts and paid daily or monthly with no benefits or job security. Despite a crushing workload and low pay, they have no choice but to keep showing up to work every day. Labour experts and the Nigeria Labour Congress estimate that between 45 and 67% of Nigerian workers in the formal sector are in casual or contract roles. During my investigation, I found that this category of workers appears in almost every sector – from state ministries and local councils to schools, state television stations, and hospitals – as government and private employers rely on cheap labour to cut costs.
A 2018 investigation conducted by Vanguard also proves my findings. The investigation found that many state ministries and local governments go for cheap labour to cut costs and meet increasing demands, employing a large number of short-term cleaners, gardeners, messengers and drivers in most government establishments, including institutions of learning from the primary to the tertiary levels. These workers end up typically performing essential support duties outside their main job, like sweeping offices, tending lawns, and conveying messages. Meanwhile, these jobs only offer meagre pay with no benefits, but with a promise of permanent employment on the way that keeps hope alive.
Hauwa Saleh Abubakar, in her recent report for HumAngle, notes that a cleaner’s ₦11,000 wage could buy only about three bowls of rice. This is the reality of casual workers in Adamawa. They routinely live hand-to-mouth by taking on multiple side gigs or extra hours just to get enough to eat and look after their families.
The bigger problem I have highlighted in this series is that casualisation has gradually turned into a form of corporate exploitation and extortion. The conditions of most of the workers violate both the letter and spirit of Nigerian labour laws. The federal Labour Act specifically states that a worker should not be kept on probation or temporary status for more than three months without formal employment. In practice, many employers, particularly in state ministries, have ignored this.
— Bankole Taiwo James.
I DO NOT WANT TO BE A CLEANER FOREVER
Before joining the ministry in 2013, I had a life which I later abandoned. I repaired phones in the market. I started the business when phones first began to come to Adamawa around 2007. I liked the work. Customers come, bring their phones, I repair what I can, and I collect my money. If the day was good, I could make more than twenty thousand naira. Not every day, though, but sometimes. That money is how I used to feed my family. Everything changed after my uncle introduced me to this work here.
ALL OF THIS FOR FIVE THOUSAND NAIRA?
Five thousand naira a month feels like a joke, really. Not even enough for a decent lunch, let alone a good lipstick. What can I do? Thank God I still live with my parents; if I were on my own, five thousand wouldn’t even cover my monthly cost of transportation. Imagine I have a law degree, yet I’m earning what a street hawker might get in a few days. My dear, coping with 5000 naira is not easy. Sometimes, I do a little side business to manage. I call it local chocolate. In Hausa, they call it Dokuwa.
GIVING UP A DECADE FOR A DREAM
When I started this work as a cleaner, they paid me ten thousand naira every month. I told myself it was enough to begin with. From that ten thousand, I put aside five thousand into adashe, our little savings group. The other five thousand is what we manage with. Later, they raised my pay to twenty thousand for the first time in a long while. Even with the small increase, I still put half in adashe and used the rest for school fees, food, and the health of my children. Thank God they attend government school.
ON PROBATION FOR FIVE YEARS WITHOUT PAY
From 2014 until 2019, I did the work and I did not get paid. Sometimes, they gave me allowances for assignments — two thousand, five thousand — and I would rush to the school office with my little cash to buy a school registration ticket because I was advised to get at least a diploma if I ever wanted to be considered for permanent employment. Once I got admission to study Mass Communication as a diploma student, I studied and worked. I finished the diploma and graduated. Well, years later, it didn’t work out well.
WE HAVE NINE MOUTHS TO FEED EVERY DAY
I’ve never applied for any government work aside from this security man that I am doing here in the secretariat, because even here, it’s my secondary school certificate that I brought here to get the work. Since I’m always here, what work can I do? In the end, I try not to regret. I will remain here. I have become used to this place. Even if I become a permanent staff member one day, I’ll probably retire soon after, but that’s not a failure. If it happens, I will be thankful. Until then, I have no choice but to wait.
Curation and photography by: Bankole Taiwo James.
Editing and design by: ‘Kunle Adebajo.
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