The unholy secrecy of NASS members’ pay package

The controversies and secrecy surrounding how much members of the National Assembly earn do not portray the federal lawmakers as transparent, accountable, and dignified representatives of their fellow citizens. For years now, it has been widely reported in the media that Nigerian parliamentarians are the most highly paid in the whole world and that against the norm, they fix their salary and allowances themselves. This has made many Nigerians to be curious about how much the legislators are actually earning, but it has been difficult to establish the real figures. It is worrisome and unacceptable that this is happening in a democratic government that is expected to exhibit high level of transparency in its activities and decisions. Lack of transparency in government is a threat to democracy.

Refusal to provide certain information required or desired by the public paves the way for rumour to thrive. It is a recipe for crisis. For socio-political stability and in the interest of national development, the people in the corridor of power should be open in what they do officially. Opaqueness breeds corruption and bad governance.

There has been an allegation that the National Assembly members earn humongous salaries and allowances that are partly responsible for the high cost of governance and hardship in the country. Among prominent Nigerians who made the allegation that the lawmakers are collecting what they are not entitled to is former President Olusegun Obasanjo. When some members of the House of Representatives visited him in Abeokuta recently, Obasanjo accused the lawmakers of fixing their earnings against the dictates of morality. “In your own case, with all due respect, you are not supposed to fix your salaries. But you decide what you pay yourselves, the allowances you give yourselves, and newspaper allowances. You give yourselves all sorts of things and you know it is not right.
It is immoral. You are doing it and the Senate is doing it, and you beat your chest. Sometimes the executive gives you what you are not entitled to. You all got N200 million,” Obasanjo said.

The allegation came after media reports that each member of the National Assembly is collecting N14.8 million monthly. A former Senator, Shehu Sani, had earlier claimed that senators receive a monthly running cost of N13.5 million in addition to a N750,000 monthly salary each. He also claimed that though the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) is empowered to determine the salaries and allowances of the lawmakers, it lacks authority to enforce compliance.

In a reaction to Obasanjo’s accusation, the Senate denied fixing the salary of its members. The spokesman, Yemi Adaramodu, who described the accusation as an attempt to crucify the legislators, claimed that no senator received any financial patronage from the presidency and that the lawmakers only collect salaries allocated by RMAFC in compliance with constitutional provisions, but he did not disclose what the figures are either for the salaries or the various allowances. In a similar reaction, the spokesman of the National Assembly, Akin Rotimi, claimed that each member of the House of Representatives earns N600,000 as salary, notwithstanding the alert of N936, 979.53 which a member, Uzokwe Ifeanyi, representing Nnewi South Federal Constituency displayed to Nigerians recently on Channels Television as his salary notification for July 2024.

The clarification offered by Rotimi was that Ifeanyi was uninformed and was not authorised to disclose such information. He said what Ifeanyi displayed was higher due to special circumstances surrounding his late assumption of office. Like Adaramodu, Rotimi did not state how much each senator earns as salary and allowances. He only revealed N600,000 as salary and was silent on how much each member of the House of Representatives collects as allowances.

When RMAFC joined the worrisome drama to contradict Shehu Sani and give clarification on what it claimed to be the take-home of the senators, the commission chairman, M.B. Shehu, detailed their earnings as follows: Basic Salary – N168,866.70; Motor Vehicle Fuelling and Maintenance Allowance – N126,650.00; Personal Assistant – N42,216.66; Domestic Staff – N126,650.00; Entertainment – N50,660.00; Utilities – N50,660.00; Newspapers/Periodicals – N25,330.00; Wardrobe – N42,216.66; House Maintenance – N8,443.33, and Constituency Allowance – N422,166.66.

The commission further explained that the senators receive regular allowances that are paid alongside the basic salary, while non-regular allowances, such as Furniture Allowance (N6, 079, 200) and Severance Gratuity (N6, 079, 200), are paid once per tenure. According to the RMAFC, vehicle allowance (N8, 105, 600) is an optional loan that must be repaid before the lawmaker leaves office.

But about 24 hours after the commission came out with the figures, the Senator representing Kano South district on the platform of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Abdurrahman Kawu Sumaila, revealed that he earns a cumulative N21 million monthly. In an interview with the BBC Hausa Service recently, he explained that although the RMAFC fixed the official pay package, the allowances in form of running costs made up for the overall N21 million pay package monthly.

In the first place, should anything be secretive about the salary and allowances of public officials that are paid with the taxpayers’ money? It has the trappings of a National Assembly that decided to make the issue esoteric, not to disclose what the members earn either in the Senate or the House of Representatives for reason best known to them. Nigerians at the levels of the individual and groups have for long demanded disclosure of the figures without any of the lawmakers, or the National Assembly as a body, ready to do so in a representative democracy where information about official activities of those who represent Nigerians in government is not supposed to be hidden to their constituents. They have shown that they have something to hide.

The comment by the National Assembly’s spokesman, Rotimi, that Ifeanyi was uninformed and was not authorised to disclose his salary notification of N936, 979.53 for July 2024 seems to confirm the decision of the legislature not to let the world know what they are taking home. Why should Ifeanyi seek approval and from who before he could tell his constituents how much he earns as their representative in government? The efforts made by Adaramodu and Rotimi to deny allegations and figures by some people should have been expended on telling Nigerians what the real figures are,  possibly disclosing their own payment details.
To be continued tomorrow.