Commission Gives Break Down As Obasanjo Stirs Controversy On Lawmakers Monthly Take-home

Kano Lawmaker Disagrees, Discloses Real Take-home For Each Senator

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo last Friday stirred fresh controversy concerning the outrageous take-home pay of our federal lawmakers when he chided them for fixing their own salaries and allowances which he described as immoral.

President Obasanjo made the accusation while receiving six members of the House of Representatives who are co-sponsors of bills on single term / rotational presidency led by Ugochinyere Ikenga representing Ideato North and Ideato South Federal Constituency of Imo state.

At the meeting, Obasanjo said, “With all due respect, you’re not supposed to fix your salaries. But you decide what you pay yourself, the allowances that you give yourselves. You give yourselves all sorts of things, and you know it is not right.

It is immoral, yet you are doing it, the Senate is doing it, and you are beating your chests about it. In some cases, the executive gives you what you’re not entitled to. You all got N200 million each.”

The Senate in a statement last Sunday refuted the claims by Obasanjo stating that they were lies. Putting up a defence of the lawmakers however, Mohammed Shehu, the Chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, the body responsible for fixing salaries and allowances of public servants, in a statement last Tuesday said that “each of the 109 senators in the upper chamber receives a total of N1.06m as salary and allowances per month.”

A breakdown of their monthly earnings as prescribed by the Commission showed that each Senator collects a monthly salary and allowances of N1,063,860, consisting of a basic salary of N168,866:70; motor vehicle fuelling and maintenance allowance, N126,650:00; and personal assistant, N42,216:66. Others include domestic staff,126,650:00; entertainment, N50,660:00; utilities, N50,660:00; newspapers/periodicals, N25,330:00; wardrobe, N42,216,66:00; house maintenance, N8,443.33:00; and constituency allowance, N422,166:66.

The Chairman of the Commission in the statement noted that “any allegation regarding other allowance(s) being enjoyed by any political, public office holder outside those provided in the Remuneration (Amendment) Act, 2008 should be explained by the person who made the allegation”.

However, in a riposte to the claim by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission that senators are paid N1m as salary, serving senator, Sumaila Kawu, representing Kano South senatorial district on Wednesday disclosed a hitherto closely-guarded secret about the exact amount senators take home every month. Speaking on BBC Hausa Service, Senator Kawu said, his salary and allowances were about N1m and after deductions, it amounted to about N600,000 but his total take home package every month was N21m.

Recall that the Chairman, Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debt in the 8th Senate, Senator Shehu Sani, who represented Kaduna Central at the Senate had once publicly disclosed that each Senator then, collected a monthly running cost of N13.5m in addition to the monthly N750,000 prescribed by the commission which has now been reviewed upward.

Senator Kawu’s disclosure that each senator now earns N21m monthly has elicited sharp reactions from Nigerians who described it as scandalous in the midst of the country’s struggling economy and widespread poverty.

They decried a situation whereby 80% of the citizens cannot afford three square meals per day while a selected few are receiving humongous pay for doing next to nothing. Nigerians lamented that our representatives do not go into political office to serve Nigeria but to make money for themselves to the detriment of the general well being of the country.

They therefore want the relevant government agencies to prosecute members of the National Assembly for contravening the extant laws by fixing their own salaries and allowances.