NASS: Low salary, jumbo allowances

IN yet another defiance of public sentiment, the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission is pressing ahead with plans to increase the salaries of federal legislators. This is an astonishing proposition in a country where lawmakers have long been pampered, despite the yawning disequilibrium between their remuneration and performance.

There is simply no moral or economic justification for increasing the salaries of Nigerian lawmakers at this time.

The Chairman of the RMAFC, Mohammed Shehu, told the Nigerian Guild of Editors that the review of salaries and allowances for executive and legislative office holders had reached an advanced stage. He added that the review for judicial office holders had been concluded.

Shehu argued that Nigeria’s political class, including federal lawmakers, are among the least paid in the world and that their remuneration has not been reviewed for some time. The commission, he said, last reviewed it in 2023.

Perhaps the argument is partly dictated by the N70,000 national minimum wage introduced in 2025. But it is a simplistic argument.

In Nigeria, it is naïve to pretend that lawmakers and political appointees live on salaries. The real money is in allowances, perks, loans, constituency funds, official vehicles and a bewildering assortment of other unconventional emoluments.

Indeed, the controversy over lawmakers’ remuneration is not new. In 2012, The Economist of London described Nigerian federal legislators as the highest-paid lawmakers in the world. Ironically, their legislative output could hardly be described as the world’s highest.

That discrepancy gave birth to the enduring expression “jumbo pay” — a description that has never been convincingly debunked, largely because of the fiscal opacity surrounding the National Assembly.

The newspaper aggregated the lawmakers’ annual basic salaries at $189,500, about 116 times Nigeria’s GDP per capita.

Unfortunately, Shehu’s argument ignores a crucial reality: Nigeria’s economy remains comparatively small, with a GDP of about $377 billion. Simply declaring Nigerian lawmakers “among the least paid” globally does not make an increase affordable, sensible or justifiable.

The Philippines has a GDP of about $480 billion; Singapore, $659.57 billion; Kenya, $147.26 billion; India, $3.2 trillion; Australia, $2.12 trillion; the UK, $4.26 trillion; and the United States, about $30 trillion.

A country’s ability to pay cannot be divorced from the size and health of its economy.

Former senator Shehu Sani said in 2018 that a senator received about N13.5 million in monthly emoluments, equivalent at the time to $37,500 or £27,500.

By 2026, a senator reportedly receives about N21 million in monthly emoluments, while a member of the House of Representatives collects about N19 million. In contrast, the RMAFC-approved monthly remuneration for a senator is only N2.02 million.

Nigerian legislators do not exactly live like poorly remunerated public servants. They cruise in long convoys of armoured SUVs and receive allowances for stewards, cooks, newspapers and magazines, security details and an army of aides.

Their public lifestyles are anything but modest.

Senators and members of the House of Representatives are also reportedly allocated up to N2 billion and N1 billion respectively as constituency allowances annually. Yet these funds often disappear into a bottomless fiscal hole, leaving constituents with little to show for them.

One lawmaker from Cross River State reportedly gave constituents 10 sheaves of cassava stem as a “project.” Another legislator from the North reportedly distributed wheelbarrows.

This is what constituency representation has been reduced to.

Then came the controversial vehicle expenditure. Despite the N8.1 million car loan approved for each senator in 2023, the NASS reportedly catapulted the car budget to N57.6 billion.

Yet Nigerians are being asked to believe that their legislators are poorly paid.

The comparison with other jurisdictions is revealing. A Kenyan legislator earns between KES710,000 ($5,485) and KES739,600 ($5,714) monthly. A member of the UK Parliament receives approximately £8,216 before tax and pension deductions per month. American lawmakers earn about $14,500 monthly, while a Singaporean legislator receives about $16,042.

Whether disguised as salaries, allowances, perks, or constituency funds, the money ultimately comes from the commonwealth. These expenditures constitute a heavy burden on an economy already struggling with profound socioeconomic distress.

The proposed increment is therefore not merely insensitive. It is provocative.

Despite President Bola Tinubu’s reforms, public debt has climbed to about N159 trillion, debt servicing has risen to N15.25 trillion, while the fiscal deficit has surpassed N20 trillion.

At the same time, lawmakers revel in jumbo remuneration while millions of Nigerians struggle to survive. About 133 million Nigerians, or 63 per cent of the population, have been classified as multidimensionally poor.

So, this is hardly the moment to reward the political class.

As lawmakers revel in obscene luxury, Nigeria overtook India as the global capital of poverty in 2018 with 86 million citizens. This is food for thought. Where is the sacrifice and patriotism of lawmakers? Their unconvincing argument is that the executive also lives in luxury. This excuse is invalid.

More disturbing is the evidence that some lawmakers are not even doing the job for which they are so generously compensated.

Some critical bills remain unattended in parliament. The June 2023 and June 2024 Deliberative Barometer Policy-Focus Productivity Report revealed that four senators and 48 members of the House of Representatives neither contributed to debates, sponsored bills, nor presented petitions during the period.

Legislative oversight, too, remains generally lax and has repeatedly been clouded by allegations of corruption.

A study by the AdvoKC Foundation, through its Promise Tracker NG platform, found that the 10th National Assembly had failed to fulfil 68 of 92 commitments made since its inauguration in June 2023. The House of Representatives recorded a fulfilment score of just 26.8 per cent, while the Senate managed 44.11 per cent.

So, what exactly are Nigerians being asked to pay more for?

Indeed, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project recently won its controversial N110 billion vehicle procurement and allowances case against the National Assembly. The episode further illustrates the troubling culture of entitlement surrounding legislative spending.

Meanwhile, ordinary workers earn the N70,000 minimum wage in a country grappling with food inflation of about 20 per cent. Millions of non-salary earners survive on irregular incomes while enduring failing roads, inadequate healthcare, poor education and deficient infrastructure.

If there must be an increase in public-sector remuneration, the priority should begin with junior workers and the millions struggling at the bottom of the economic ladder, not legislators already enjoying an extraordinary range of benefits.

And there is one question the RMAFC should answer.

If federal legislators are truly as poorly paid as the commission would have Nigerians believe, why do they fight such desperate, often do-or-die battles to return to the National Assembly at every election cycle?

The answer is obvious.

Nigeria must stop subsidising the extravagant lifestyles of politicians. Public office should not be a gateway to private affluence.

Perhaps it is time to consider making legislative duty a part-time responsibility, as some Nigerians have proposed. Such a model could substantially reduce the cost of governance while potentially attracting professionals who are willing to serve without treating public office as a lifetime economic jackpot.

For now, the RMAFC should shelve its proposed upward review of lawmakers’ salaries.

The lawmakers do not need another pay rise.

What they need is a pay cut and a reminder that public office is a responsibility, not a reward.

Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).