‘We borrow to fund election campaigns’

A MEMBER of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Rasheed Makinde, has described as unfair, the call for reduction in allowances of elected public office holders.

Makinde, representing Ifako/Ijaiye II Constituency on the platform of the All Progressive Congress (APC), said most of today’s public office holders were still indebted to sponsors that bankrolled their rather “expensive” electoral campaigns.

He also appealed to “perk seekers” that are often loitering around the Assembly complex to be modest in their demands, as the lawmakers too would need time to recover financially.

Makinde, a first-time lawmaker, said though he was not averse to part-time legislature, “pay cuts would be most unfair as most politicians borrow money to run elections.”

According to him, “The issue of part-time legislature is okay, but I would not support a reduction of pay package because the cost of running election in Nigeria is very expensive compared to advanced countries that we compare our package with.”

Continuing, he said, “In those countries, you would open an election campaign account and people would be donating for your campaigns. Here, they would only borrow you money and you would need collateral to do so from the banks.

“In Nigeria, you would spend money and if you don’t give people money, you would never win any election except where the electorates are educated and nobody asks you for money. It is not a secret as it is open to everybody. So most times, we borrow money to run elections in Nigeria,” he said.

Makinde added that hardly would anyone see a legislator that has not borrowed money to do elections be it state or federal.

“So, how do you repay the money if the salary is poor? When I got to this place, I was disappointed because our salary is not much,” he said.

It was gathered that each member of the Lagos Assembly earns N750, 000 every month, excluding sitting allowances. A sum of N9 billion is appropriated to the 40-lawmaker House out of the N486 billion budget estimate for Year 2015.

For undisclosed reasons, the current lawmakers are yet to be paid since the Eighth Assembly resumed last month.

On what attracted him to the legislative arm of government, he said that everybody had been complaining about the system without showing any interest.

“I believe that my coming would bring a lot of changes, which is why I am working hard to see that I do my best. Making laws for the people also motivated me, I am not here for selfish purposes,” he said.