The Constant Employer-Employee War in Nigeria: A Result of a Broken System?

The ongoing employer-employee saga surrounding Mr. Stephen Akintayo of Gtek has once again opened a conversation Nigerians have been having for years but rarely want to confront honestly.

And honestly, there are no completely innocent parties here.

Many of the big companies we admire today are battling the same problems behind closed doors: delayed salaries, overworked employees, one person doing the job of three, unrealistic targets, and workers being told to “earn their keep” before they can justify their salaries.

For many Nigerian 9-5 workers, the reality is brutal. You work from Monday to Friday, or sometimes Monday to Saturday. You wake up early, fight traffic, spend money getting to work, give your time, energy and expertise to a company, and then at the end of the month; What is left? No meaningful savings, No investment, No financial breathing space. Sometimes, your salary finishes before it even arrives.

And then you look at your employer and think, “How can you expect me to give more when what you give me cannot even sustain me?”

But then, let’s turn the camera around.

The employer says: 

“Do you think running a business in Nigeria is easy?” Electricity is expensive, diesel is expensive, taxes and levies are everywhere, infrastructure is poor, access to affordable capital is difficult, customers themselves are struggling, government policies can change overnight, Operating costs keep rising while purchasing power keeps falling.

And somehow, the business owner is still expected to provide salaries, pay rent, maintain equipment, provide electricity, satisfy customers, pay taxes and keep the business alive.

So the employer says:

“If I pay everyone what they want, I may not have a business left to pay anyone.” And therein lies the real conversation.

Maybe the biggest enemy is neither the employer nor the employee, maybe the bigger enemy is the SYSTEM. 

A system that makes it unnecessarily difficult to build and sustain businesses, a system where basic infrastructure like reliable electricity remains a major business expense. a system where entrepreneurs spend enormous resources solving problems that government and institutions should have helped solve, a system that makes survival so difficult that employers and employees eventually begin fighting each other over the little that is left.

The truth however remains that the broken system does NOT excuse bad employers. There are employers who genuinely do not care about human capital development. They want to squeeze everything out of their employees without understanding that employees are human beings, not business equipment.

You cannot keep taking from a person without refilling them, you cannot demand creativity from someone you have completely drained, you cannot demand loyalty from someone who feels constantly undervalued. Create a healthy working environment, pay people fairly and on time, give people room to learn, recognize their efforts, and respect their humanity.

The truth employers still struggle with is this, if employees are treated well, they don’t just work for the company, they work WITH the company.

But employees, too, need to look in the mirror.

Not every difficult workplace is the reason for your lack of growth. Some employees are simply unwilling to learn. Some refuse to improve their skills. And sometimes, even when the environment is conducive, their own “village people” are still doing overtime. 

So yes, employers need to do better, employees need to do better too. But beyond all of us, Nigeria needs to do better, because if we continue creating an environment where businesses are barely surviving and workers are barely living, this employer-employee war will never end.

Today, it is Gtek. Tomorrow, it will be another company, and the next day, another employee will tell their story. We will pick sides. We will drag each other online. We will argue about who is right. And then we will move on. Until the next story.

Perhaps it is time we stopped asking, “Who is the villain?”

And started asking: “What kind of system have we created that keeps forcing employers and employees into survival mode?”

Because a healthy economy should not be one where the employer is struggling to keep the business alive while the employee is struggling to keep their life alive.

Businesses need to thrive.
Employees need to live.
And the system needs to make both possible.

So, what do you think?

Is the Nigerian employer-employee problem mainly a problem of bad employers, bad employees, or a broken system that keeps putting both sides under unbearable pressure?

Let’s have an honest conversation in the comments.