For Taye Bamgbade, a 48-year-old banker in Lagos, having a salary no longer guarantees that the money will stretch to the end of the month.
Bamgbade leaves home before dawn and works as a taxi driver on his way to Victoria Island, using the extra income to offset the cost of getting to work. BusinessDay reported on June 2, 2026, that his salary had remained in place while its purchasing power had fallen.
His experience captures a question facing many salaried Nigerians: if inflation is slowing, but prices remain high, should workers still ask for a raise?
The official numbers may suggest that pressure is easing. The National Bureau of Statistics reported that headline inflation fell marginally to 15.39% in August 2026 from 15.43% in July. It was also significantly below the 23.14% recorded in August 2025.
Food inflation stood at 19.57% year-on-year in August, compared with 25.30% a year earlier.
But disinflation does not mean prices are falling. It means they are increasing at a slower rate.
On a month-on-month basis, the NBS recorded inflation at 0.71% in August. So while the pace of price increases has slowed, the higher price level remains.
That distinction matters to workers whose salaries have barely changed.
A salary that bought a particular basket of food, paid transport costs and covered household bills a year ago may no longer provide the same purchasing power today, even if the inflation rate is lower.
That is why employees seeking a salary review should build their case around the value of their work rather than simply the rising cost of living.
The first step is evidence.
Workers should document what they delivered during the year, targets achieved, revenue generated, costs reduced, additional responsibilities taken on and projects completed. Market information on what comparable roles pay can strengthen the case.
The argument is stronger when it is tied to the job.
Instead of telling an employer, “Everything is expensive,” an employee can point to increased responsibilities and changes in market pay for similar roles.
Timing also matters. A salary conversation is more useful after a measurable achievement, during a performance review or ahead of an organisation’s budgeting cycle than at a time when salary decisions have already been locked in.
Compensation is increasingly treated as a structured business decision rather than simply an individual request. Recent Nigerian recruitment and compensation roles show that employers use salary benchmarking, job evaluation, salary bands and annual review processes when determining pay.
That means workers should understand where their role sits within the organisation and what evidence supports moving them to another point on the pay scale.
There is also room to negotiate beyond basic salary.
If an employer says there is no budget for an immediate increase, an employee can ask about transport or housing support, professional training, additional leave, hybrid work or a clearly dated salary review.
The important thing is to avoid leaving the conversation at a vague promise.
A statement such as “we will review it next year” should, where possible, become a written commitment with a specific review date.
The wider wage debate shows why the issue is unlikely to disappear soon. Organised labour has continued to argue that inflation, fuel prices, transportation and other living costs have eroded workers’ purchasing power. In September 2026, the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council demanded salary and allowance reviews and called for inflation-linked adjustments as part of its proposals ahead of the next minimum-wage negotiations.
For individual employees, however, the calculation is more immediate.
Cooling inflation may give employers evidence that economic pressure is easing. Workers can counter with a different fact, the prices that rose during the inflation surge have not automatically returned to where they were.
The case for a raise, therefore, is not simply that inflation is high.
It is that the value of the job, the market rate for the work and the purchasing power of the salary should be reviewed against the economic reality workers are now facing.
