- Senator Lawan’s explanation on National Assembly’s annual allocation not tenable
After years of keeping secret the salaries and allowances drawn monthly by federal legislators, the Senate President, Dr. Ahmed Lawan, has disclosed their remunerations. At the first Distinguished Parliamentarians Lecture Series last week, Dr. Lawan told his audience that each Senator is paid a salary of N1.5 million, while members of the House of Representatives are each paid N1.3 million. He said the allowance for running the office is 13 million for each Senator, while members of the House draw 8 million quarterly. In the Senate President’s view, this is a paltry sum that should not attract so much opprobrium from citizens.
This is surprising. In a country where majority of the people live in abject poverty and squalor, it is an affront to the public psyche for one of the leaders to justify the outrageous sum they draw from the public coffers. Perhaps Senator Lawan temporarily forgot that the minimum wage in the country is N30, 000. And, at that, many state governments as employers of labour have not started paying. Many of those represented in the federal legislature are already out of job as a result of inclement economic environment. Food inflation is at an all-time high, consequent upon which many Nigerians go to bed hungry daily. Yet, the legislators contend that the fat salaries and allowances amount to nothing.
Contrary to the figures released by the Senate President, former Senator Shehu Sani who represented Kaduna Central in the Eighth Senate had disclosed in March 2018 that each of the Senators was paid N15 million monthly, not quarterly, while their counterparts in the second chamber are regularly paid N13 million as running grants for their constituency offices. No one disputed the figures then as the Senate merely made a feeble attempt to shut him up. It was already too late. The legislators are public officials and we challenge them to make full disclosure of what they draw from the till. Failure to inform the public about their pay is a disservice. The relevant institutions responsible for deciding the federal pay structure such as the Wages and Salaries Commission, as well as the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) should come out with the full figures of how much all public officials draw from the coffers. If we could know how much the judicial officers are paid, we should be told how much the legislators also draw by various names.
Any allowance not paid to Federal Public servants should not be made available to legislators and ministers. The argument by Senate President Lawan that the aggregate recurrent and capital expenditure of the National Assembly stands at less than N130 billion, which is a mere one per cent of the national budget is not tenable. At this point, every kobo means so much as the government literally lives on foreign loans that the people are afraid could enslave coming generations in view of what is currently happening in some East African countries. There should be an alignment of the pay structure. Paying senior judicial officers and university Professors less than half a million monthly while political office holders earn more than triple is unacceptable. Each time the legislators go on recess, they do so at the expense of the tax payers. They are regularly paid furniture allowance, stationery allowance, newspaper allowance running into millions monthly and other sundry unexplained payments.
It is true that the legislators are supported by a full-fledged bureaucracy, including the National Assembly Commission, the Legislative Institute and legislative aides. But, how many of them are really sincere in the appointments? The Senate President says they collectively have about 6,500 aides in Abuja and their constituencies, is this true position of things? And the few who are so employed, how much and how regularly are they paid? It has become a common sight to behold the staff unfurl banners and placards depicting the cruel treatment being meted to them by the legislators and the Commission. But, the lawmakers are never owed their humongous emoluments.
The Civil Society Organisations and general public should step up to challenge the legislators to make known every Kobo they draw from the coffers and prune the indefensible allowances. These are not normal times. Rather than defending the indefensible, the Senate President, not only as Chairman of the National Assembly, but as the longest serving lawmaker should take the lead in ensuring that the public is well served. The CSOs should take the lead in mobilizing the electorate in this regard if Nigeria is ever to crawl out of the debt cave into which the elected officials have put the country. The young graduates would remain unemployed for as long as the fund that could pay 100 fresh graduates is allocated to one legislator.
While we agree that the executive arm should not be any less open about their salaries and allowances, the lawmakers should realize that the public is focused on them because they were elected to check the excesses of those in the executive arm. This duty has not been discharged satisfactorily. Rather, there is obvious collusion to keep the truth away from the public. It is time to promote the spirit of patriotism and nationalism in the leaders without which there would be no development.
The Nation
