Legislators’ extra-large pay

Each time the issue of salaries and allowances of members of the National Assembly is thrown up, it ruffles feathers. It was the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who first alerted the nation sometime ago that the lawmakers spend about 25 percent of the nation’s recurrent budget.
Of course, that revelation by the loquacious and audacious CBN governor had angered the lawmakers, who responded by attempting to amend the CBN Act so as to curb the independence of the apex bank. Lamido did not also cover himself properly when he was accused of expending the nation’s funds on humanitarian activities.
He was also accused of being too powerful because the CBN’s budget is not appropriated by NASS.
A news magazine, Economist, had re-echoed the controversial issue recently when its publication reinforced the allegation against members of NASS of taking outrageous salary.
According to the report, a Nigerian legislator earns a basic annual salary of $189,500, an equivalent of N30million. Even this figure is being dwarfed by insiders’ information which put a member of the House of Representatives’ quarterly allowance at N35million.
Addressing the House during the Green Chamber’s anniversary in June this year, the lawyer and human rights activist, Femi Falana, had challenged the lawmakers to make their salaries and allowances public so as to clear their names from public perception that they corruptly enrich themselves through ‘jumbo’ salaries and allowances they pay themselves.
The House, of course, did not respond to the grievous allegations, which tended to have one more time confirmed the matter.
Though the chairman of Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, Engr. Elias Mbam, had dabbled into the fray by defending the lawmakers, he denied that members of NASS were taking that fat salaries and allowances.
“This is an area that many Nigerians need to be properly informed about because, I read the other day that their salaries were about N35 million. Certainly, that is not from here. There is no Senator, after all deduction that takes home more than one million a month as salary. And if you compare it with what is obtainable elsewhere, you find out that one will not consider that too big.
“Look at how much a Permanent Secretary is paid, how much are Chief Executives, CBN Governor, and other establishments, even school professors are paid and then compare it with what obtains in other countries, the problem is that most of the reports we receive particularly in news prints say that they are paid much more than that”, he stated.
It is not possible for the RMAFC boss to defend the lawmakers without burning his fingers and his hands. He is limited to what he knew about the facts and figures in his office, but lawmakers have been reported to have confessed that they are as guilty as charged, whether they get their pay from the RMAFC or NASS leadership or wherever.
The crux of the matter, however, is that it is morally reprehensible for lawmakers to take so much from the country, fighting for them rather than making patriotic cases for the toiling masses of this country. If there are, indeed ‘Distinguished’ and ‘Honourable’ men and women in NASS, they should rise up and address this morally incriminating matter so as to save their names from merciless judgment of history.